if im going to have to ask for capacity, why dont I just get my own bare metal servers then?

Because you don't have to wait for weeks just for delivery. And you pay for elastic usage.

	▲	vidarh 37 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		You can order bare metal servers delivery time in minutes from any number of hosting providers and the cost difference is so huge you can afford to keep excess capacity and still come out ahead.