I wonder whether this article was initiated by a PR department from either DigitalOcean or Blackhaze, which are the only two providers mentionned. I does talk about a new trend, but it brings little new facts.
Hiya - I wrote the article, it wasn't from PR. As far as I know the supplier stuff, revenue numbers, signup numbers, are new.
I concur: it is a new trend and DigitalOcean or Backblaze are not the only one playing this game. I work for a start-up in this market. We also design our own hardware and software, all packaged under an IaaS offering: https://scaleway.com/faq/#-What-is-Scaleway