my more generous interpretation of the situation is that people do not see the work / effort / complexity of operating a solution. They think that open source is free, when in reality it is cheaper (generally) but not free.

You need to pay the hosting. You need to install it, configure it, and patch it. And when stuff breaks, you have no one to call upon but yourself.

But, as you say, if you can do all of that, open source is amazing value.