[cornholio]

A docker image host is NOT a VPS with extra steps, because a VPS is a server and needs to be administered professionally as a server by someone competent for that job, that excludes 90% of developers who are willing to spend only one hour per year for this task. Think about running mail servers, you can do it manually but to do a good job you need to invest so much time and effort that almost everyone doing it will throw in the towel eventually.

And while I agree with the sentiment of resisting encloudification, you can take your docker image to any other host if you want, it's a generic service. in a pinch, you can build your own and have 100% control just like the VPS case.

The point is that you don't have to, you just git push into production and forget about it. that's a good few dozens less "extra steps" than the VPS route.