Sure, but for the most part these places just didn't use either. You can go extremely far without any of the things the kubernetes gets you. (And if you want to, you can get some if those things for a lot lower cost than k8s)
I mean, you can just install kubernetes on your own system. Most of these things that AWS provides exist as services. You get some benefit from AWS running them, but you pay in literal dollars and the invisible complexity they add.
Sure, but for the most part these places just didn't use either. You can go extremely far without any of the things the kubernetes gets you. (And if you want to, you can get some if those things for a lot lower cost than k8s)