Why would I run it myself? It's $0.10 per million tokens. Dirt cheap. (Jev is even cheaper.)
You could ask the same question about why anyone would rent a VPS. I can just run my own hardware, it's just a computer!
Buy vs rent is not just about what's possible, it's about what's economic.
For one, to remove network RTT
Yeah and OAI is twice as expensive as Jev, which is kind of my point. And more expensive than open models, which you don't necessarily have to host yourself. Pure bandwaggoning.