The standard argument here is that the maintainers of the core technology are likely to do a better job of hosting it because they have deeper understanding of how it all works.

There's also the trick Deno has been trying, where they can use their control of the core open source project to build features that uniquely benefit their cloud hosting: https://til.simonwillison.net/deno/deno-kv#user-content-the-...

Hosting is a commodity. Runtimes are too. In this case, the strategy is to make a better runtime, attract developers, and eventually give them a super easy way to run their project in the cloud. Eg: bun deploy, which is a reserved no op command. I really like Buns DX.

Yep. This strategy can work, and it has also backfired before, like with Docker trying to monetize something they gave away for free.