1. For small stuff, AWS et al aren't that much more expensive than Hetzner, mostly in the same ballpark, maybe 2x in my experience.
2. What's easy to underestimate for _developers_ is that your self hosted setup is most likely harder to get third party support for. If you run software on AWS, you can hire someone familiar with AWS and as long as you're not doing anything too weird, they'll figure it out and modify it in no time.
I absolutely prefer self hosting on root servers, it has always been my go to approach for my own companies, big and small stuff. But for people that can't or don't want to mess with their infrastructure themselves, I do recommend the cloud route even with all the current anti hype.