The correct choice is Shift up-front capital spending to pay-as-you-go operating costs. This option directly aligns with the startup goal of avoiding large capital purchases and matching costs to actual usage.

Shift up-front capital spending to pay-as-you-go operating costs is correct because cloud services let organizations convert heavy up-front capital expenditures into flexible operating expenses, scale resources up and down with demand, and pay only for the capacity they consume.

Give up elasticity to maximize raw performance is incorrect because cloud providers deliver elasticity and strong performance and you do not have to sacrifice elasticity to get good performance.

AWS Budgets is incorrect because it is a cost management and forecasting tool rather than the underlying business model that enables pay as you go.

Exchange stronger security controls for faster scaling is incorrect because AWS emphasizes security and does not require trading off security controls to achieve scalability.

Full AWS Practitioner Certification Question