Ok... but what about lock-in? I use Google's magical pixie dust, great. Then at some point I want to get out. With MySQL I can do that. I can run it on 1 machine, I can cluster it to a reasonably large scale.
Can I run Google's magic machine on my own server(s)?
It's not a "lock in", not more than deciding to use MySQL or any other product. Please call that a design choice or a partnership.
You want to get out, you download your database data and move back to AWS pixie dust or self-hosted pixie dust.
Most services are pretty standard, it's not magic. There are comparable equivalents. The most advanced capabilities will only come with commercial products that are a million dollars (EMC, VmWare, F5, Akamai).
P.S. MySQL got took over by Oracle. Nothing is forever ;)
Can I run Google's magic machine on my own server(s)?
Not really...