[solipsism]

That misses the point, doesn't it. The point isn't "maybe you don't really need nosql/non-relational", it's "maybe you don't need an expensive managed storage solution built for massive scale."

Spanner was indeed built for massive scale, which is reflected in the price.

[eru]

Hmm, you are probably right.

Spanner does have somewhat less scale than their NoSQL offerings; and even Google says internally to go for the somewhat less scale-y spanner than them. (Because it's easier to react to needs for scale laten than it is to live without transactions and relation querying.)