You could never afford a hyperscaler size data center. You could always just buy a server and stick it into Colo. it’s just not totally the same thing
I also couldn't afford to rent one.
I can afford to rent fractional use of one, but by that token I could also afford to buy a very small fraction of one too.
I can't afford the ram and storage in the server anymore though. So it kinda is the same thing.