While the ASTER DEM dataset has about 10X worse resolution (30 m instead of 10 m), it has global(ish) coverage. We should see how far we can get with this dataset when better DEMs are unavailable.
Users (like us) may wish to supply their own DEM data. For example, we want to support elevation estimation in Santiago using the only high-resolution data source we've been able to find, which is in point cloud data format. We will need to process this on our side to create a DEM. Rather than forcing us to then republish it at a URL, we should also allow the use of a local DEM.
The dataset is on opentopography