If the compute is the unit of value under consideration, maybe. But there's more - you have access, freedom from supervision, the capability to modify, upgrade, tweak, adjust anything you want, resell compute under p2p cloud services when idle, etc. And then if the market for these gets hot, you can sell and recoup your initial costs and then some. The freedom and opportunity benefit - as opposed to the dependence and opportunity cost of renting - is where I personally think you come out on top.