On top of that, NextJS doesn't even support the <Image/> component (and thus all their image optimization) when exporting to static output (unlike Gatsby). So you will be pushed even closer to pay them.
In your very link you can see that you can only add a handle to a third party loader. Their built in image optimization that works in vercel does not if you static export and host elsewhere.
If you do a static export, you don’t have a server to optimize images. It’s just a bunch of static files. The only way to optimize the image is to point to a service through the loader.
Also, the image optimization on the default Next.js server, for example deployed to a $4 VPS, also works without Vercel.
Next should have the same functionality that Gatsby had when doing a static export: pre-optimised images for different breakpoints that are created at build time. That would be a truly portable solution.
that is simply not true, there are static export, 3rd party image optimizers [0] (that re-use <Image />) - just vercel does not care about theirs for static export. Also, look at how gatsby does without cloud/server hosted images.
