I am currently working with a startup that spends a lot of time on building tests that need to be refactored every sprint because it's early stage and the assumptions change. I am shocked at the amount of developer-hours spent on tests that need to be disabled / deleted instead of just hiring 1 - 2 super cheap manual testers that just go through the flows days in and out.

For me it's a no brainer, if I were CEO / CTO, until product-market-fit is achieved and exponential growth is visible, I'd just outsource Q&A and that's that.