I'd love to be able to show you numbers but all I can really do is point out I've done this since 93 and it's worked out really well. And I did read some guys analysis of it and he found it to be cheaper, sorry that's the best I can do.
Set up a home server. Make it nice. They drop it off at a buddies. Or send the disk image to the other side of the country to a buddy there. Repeat. Now make one more at home and use that. Get a cable and a dsl connection and you'll have better uptime than Google. Add a sat link if you're really serious and drive it off a solar powered battery array (you can get to 6v bigass lead acid batteries for $200, they're a prewar design that hasn't changed and still work great. If have the bucks (about $500 I think) get a pair of Royce batteries - they don't vent hydrogen and last longer and made to a much much higher standard, the Rolls is implied in my mind) so it'll work even if the power and local isp's are out. It'll be slow and expensive but it's better than not working.
Now make them talk to each other however you like. Or use them manually. Point is, telcos peer circuits, uucp would "pass your mail if you pass mine" so having somebody you really trust keep a server for you works well, you may want to reciprocate you may not, but this is all doable. That is, I've one it and for a long time.
Or find the DHT cloud of your dreams and throw everything in there. There's a thousand ways to slice this but the current commercial ones are the moral equivalent of punched card decks; I wouldn't bother.