I was a service delivery manager and project manager for a very large company that did server hosting. I don't think everyone needs the services a fully managed dedicated hosting facility can provide, in fact I think the economies of scale there can even hurt the little guy. However, most of the lessons learned and infrastructure architecture there can benefit about everyone. Hosting a site is expensive and complicated as a start up. Especially when you consider licensing, security, ISP, redundancy, performance and capacity, the "unexpected" and disaster recovery. There are some great places out there to host your site for a relatively small amount of money. Before you go into the "hosting" business yourself, I'd be careful to think of the entire scope of your project; managed dedicated hosting is often the way to go.
Best,
Scott Kameron