Furniture is actually an ongoing service on the scale of public organisations. When I worked for a Danish city we had a set of subscriptions for furniture, depending on what sort of institution it was. This probably won't surprise you but city hall had the supreme plus subscription which meant that furniture was replaced regularily, while schools had the shit tier subscription meaning the furniture almost had to break into pieces before it got replaced. It's done with purchase agreements for an entire sector.

I think the comparison is fair enough considering that self-hosted would work sort of similar. In that you'd rent the physical space for your hardware (and possibly the hardware itself) at local suppliers, and not actually have it in your basement.

A third party supplies their electricity too.