[vacri]

Running your own hardware is always going to be cheaper - but you also need to employ folks with hardware management skills. That's fine if you already have those.

Similarly, cloud offerings give you remote reach easily - one company I work at has it's production servers almost literally on the direct opposite point of the globe. You can do datacentres with remote hands, sure, but it's another layer of complexity. Hardware also has a mild barrier to entry in the form of cost - for small shops, doling out the five or six figures you need for initial hardware is a pretty sizable chunk.