I disagree that it is not expensive. If you're launching a single instance then yes, it's tolerable: $0.21/hr or $1839 per year (very similar to their non-AMI pricing). Anything is tolerable at a low scale.
Now think about services that use nginx on every machine as a general purpose URL API interface. It's not uncommon, why bother re-inventing the HTTP server wheel. At a previous company, a service I ran would have cost $3.6 million a year in nginx plus licensing fees. Almost none of the added 'plus' features would have been at all useful.
If you see nginx plus as a way to pay for the core software then sure, maybe that cost is appropriate. I will not support them with per-server licensing of gated off features. Oh and by the way, nginx plus is closed source and is only available on a small handful of platforms, and doesn't always maintain the same release schedule as the open source version, all as a way of supporting their licensing scheme.
I would support nginx via professional services and support fees, but only in conjunction with the open source release. So it's up to them if they want that money or not.
Let me ask you this, most of the "premium" Nginx Plus features are specific to load balancing. You shouldn't need more than 2 or 3 load balancers right? I.E. load balancer in each availability zone or multiple regions? Beyond that use Nginx open source. This is exactly what I do.
I get what you're saying, but now you have two divergent nginx releases to maintain. nginx plus isn't simply nginx with an extra module, it is closed source and on a separate release train.
For instance, the last nginx plus release (R8) is based on nginx 1.9.9 (plus was released 40 days later). The previous is based on nginx 1.9.4 (plus was released 25 days later). It isn't a matter of life and death, but it is an annoyance and unnecessary.
At least with Varnish Plus, it's still the same open source server with proprietary modules added in. I understand that nginx wants to go that route eventually, but they're hamstrung by the lack of dynamic module loading for the moment.
Now think about services that use nginx on every machine as a general purpose URL API interface. It's not uncommon, why bother re-inventing the HTTP server wheel. At a previous company, a service I ran would have cost $3.6 million a year in nginx plus licensing fees. Almost none of the added 'plus' features would have been at all useful.
If you see nginx plus as a way to pay for the core software then sure, maybe that cost is appropriate. I will not support them with per-server licensing of gated off features. Oh and by the way, nginx plus is closed source and is only available on a small handful of platforms, and doesn't always maintain the same release schedule as the open source version, all as a way of supporting their licensing scheme.
I would support nginx via professional services and support fees, but only in conjunction with the open source release. So it's up to them if they want that money or not.