If your startup survive next 6 months it is already more cost-effective to buy a server.
And if startup fails you still have a server to run your next startup.
Isn't it how you save money by picking cheaper product instead of more expensive?
We save by buying hardware and renting DC space.
If we were using AWS we would not save.
Did you see how much we saved comparing to AWS? We could even hire an admin for each of 850 servers and would still have money left.
But we have only one person taking care of hardware replacements. That is enough for the whole setup.
It is hard to believe how high cloud costs are.