Last time I checked, Google was mostly charging per viewer instance, whereas OSM tile providers where universally charging by actual volume. That way, Google pricing would be unbeatably attractive for an SPA where users are panning and zooming a lot in a single map instance, but prohibitively expensive for sites where users open a lot of pages that each contain a little map viewer (or multiple) that is hardly ever interacted with.
A clear horses for courses situation. Unfortunately the site I had in mind was just as clearly a "both".
The main reason for not self-hosting is data updates I think. Setting up that "data supply chain" might not be very hard or expensive, but it can adds a lot to the overall maintenance demand of a site. Chances are that automation will keep working precisely as long as you can remember how you did it, plus a few more days.
A clear horses for courses situation. Unfortunately the site I had in mind was just as clearly a "both".
The main reason for not self-hosting is data updates I think. Setting up that "data supply chain" might not be very hard or expensive, but it can adds a lot to the overall maintenance demand of a site. Chances are that automation will keep working precisely as long as you can remember how you did it, plus a few more days.