[mlindner]

One of the things driving things into "the cloud" is because the hardware companies can buy can't compete on performance with the hardware that Google/Amazon/Microsoft/Facebook can make. That drives businesses to move things to the cloud. However some things _can't_ go to the cloud (legal reasons of all sorts for one) and so are stuck with an inferior situation. Assuming you had the money, there's nothing stopping you from putting a server rack in your house. If there was a company selling such hardware, maybe the trend to putting everything on the cloud would change.