Why not us-east-2 if you need east coast? Even so, I’m almost as far as I can be (in America) from us-west-1 and us-west-2. The difference in speed is barely perceptible when running services out west. In fact, I think my Lightsail PiHole is out there.
As I said, I’m not aware of any historical issues at the other DCs. 🤷🏻♂️
N. California as a region can’t grow and it’s priced accordingly. Instead, compare US East (Ohio) or US West (Oregon) for a region that’s price competitive. A lot of Amazon internal stuff was starting to move to US East (Ohio) because it was geographically close, but a lot less problematic.