The point being that there is a trade-off to be made between paying for an OS instance and having certainty of support, versus community distros with no upfront

The point being that there is a trade-off to be made between paying for an OS instance and having certainty of support, versus community distros with no upfront sticker price but might cost more in man-hours when things fall apart. Anything run-the-business should have support. Anything used by developers for R&D / messing about can be unsupported.