Comment by zucker42

Not included in the break even calculation was the cost of colocation, or the cost of hiring someone to make sure the computer is in working order, or the less hassle upon hardware failures.

Also, as the author even mention in an article, a modern server basically obsoletes a 10 year old server. So you're going to have to replace your server at least every 10 years. So the break even in the case of renting makes sense when you consider that the server depreciates really quickly.