[api]

> I never understood the flocking to AWS.

Nobody ever got fired for using AWS.

BTW you don't need to "run your own server" per se on the bare metal or VPS providers. You can auto-provision with Terraform, run Kubernetes or Nomad/Consul, etc. You have to do some work to set up your templates and the environment you will use but once it's created you can stamp out copies of it endlessly.

There are cases where AWS et. al. make sense. The bottom line is that you need to do your own spreadsheets modeling your own workload and compare costs. Include extra labor for managing your own stuff and compare it to the added costs of AWS.

What you'll often find is that AWS and such are cheaper at a small to medium scale and DIY becomes cheaper (sometimes radically so) at larger scale.