It's not the hardware you're paying for, it's the services. How much does it cost to employ a systems administrator? A lab tech? And so on. You see exactly the

It's not the hardware you're paying for, it's the services. How much does it cost to employ a systems administrator? A lab tech? And so on. You see exactly the same pattern in software services. People pay more to buy products that are "turn key" versus having to hire someone to do tons of work building out systems or services or what-have-you. Also, hiring people is a risk, and it doesn't happen instantly. When you have a gap of months without a sysadmin things are bad. Hiring a bad sysadmin is even worse. Not to mention the impossibility of hiring 1/2 or 3/4 of a sysadmin. There's scaling limits there. If you have the resources to DIY, that can be a key competitive advantage, but not everyone does.