I agree but now the cost climbs. I am not saying AWS is cheap. Just that you need to look at all the services and components that support a server in a rack.
All included, still not even close. Not by a long shot. Renting bare metal from a major provider is going to be less than 20% the cost of aws and that's not even including the bandwidth which is even cheaper from bare metal vs aws.
There is no calculus that makes aws cheaper unless you need extreme variability or some of their managed services and even then, you can usually use those services in conjunction with your rented bare metals.
There is no calculus that makes aws cheaper unless you need extreme variability or some of their managed services and even then, you can usually use those services in conjunction with your rented bare metals.