> Has anyone ever toyed around with the idea?
Sidero Omni have done this: https://omni.siderolabs.com
They run a Wireguard network between the nodes so you can have a mix of on-premise and cloud within one cluster. Works really well but unfortunately is a commercial product with a pricing model that is a little inflexible.
But at least it shows it's technically possible so maybe open source options exist.