Everyone wants to lock you in.

Unfortunately there's no other way to make money. If you're 100% liberally licensed, you just get copied. AWS/GCP clone your product, offer the same offering, and they take all the money.

It sucks that there isn't a middle ground. I don't want to have to build castles in another person's sandbox. I'd trust it if they gave me the keys to do the same. I know I don't have time to do that, but I want the peace of mind.