Yep - it's also an exercise to keep my cloud engineering skills up to date - I can take the approach I use on the hobby projects and apply it to production level stuff in my job.

If it's an exercise to keep your cloud engineering skills up to date, perhaps you'd like to manage your own Kubernetes? Then I'm sure it can be much cheaper.

Maybe this is part of the training. Paying overpriced fees and stay addicted to the cloud.

Spending money on hobbies is part of the benefits of working no? If you can afford the essentials I would hope people are spending money on things they enjoy.

Pretty cheap if you account for the very employable skills either being learned or kept sharp!