> That really doesn't feel like it's inherent to Lambda at all. You could say the same thing about EC2.
The major difference is that Lambda hooks into your developer tooling, and source code, in a way that EC2 doesn't.
Sure, you can use Lambda without calling AWS APIs from your app... But you'll be using SDKs, tools and documentation that push you to do so, every day. It will require conscious thought and effort in your development to avoid lock-in, and over time the required effort will increase, because more and more third-party tools and libraries will switch to proprietary dependencies, dragging you along with them.
The major difference is that Lambda hooks into your developer tooling, and source code, in a way that EC2 doesn't.
Sure, you can use Lambda without calling AWS APIs from your app... But you'll be using SDKs, tools and documentation that push you to do so, every day. It will require conscious thought and effort in your development to avoid lock-in, and over time the required effort will increase, because more and more third-party tools and libraries will switch to proprietary dependencies, dragging you along with them.