And at Seattle prices, that's $150, so I don't exactly see what the purpose of your anecdote is other than to mention how pricy your electricity is. Edit: But

And at Seattle prices, that's $150, so I don't exactly see what the purpose of your anecdote is other than to mention how pricy your electricity is. Edit: But even at $500, that's pretty much the price of a low-spec VPS or VM per year. So for a fairly low initial price to buy the server, you're getting far more performance for the same price you'd pay someone else to use theirs.