This is not an unreasonable ask though. You should certainly think twice to pigeon holing yourself with any technology that you do not have full rights to and will be lost without a specific provider.
It does make figuring out your business model more complicated, but having SOME story for what will happen if you go out of business or start being a bad actor is something you need to figure out.
It isn't impossible though, our SAAS is Open Source and we survive, though yes, some customers do choose to self host. You just end up with fewer enterprise customers and more smaller clients.
I understand the request, because I would not use the service myself for the same reasons.
But let's be real, if it became open source, I would just host it and never pay for it. They would have to do more work for less money. Hardly fair.
They can always start with a strong commercial offer, then later address the user locking issue. For them, I think it's a way better strategy. FOSS first is very hard to monetize. The Libre community is a terrible customer.
If I make software that enables you to create things, then the software is mine and I can charge you for using it, but what you make using my software is yours and you can do whatever you want with it.
It does make figuring out your business model more complicated, but having SOME story for what will happen if you go out of business or start being a bad actor is something you need to figure out.
It isn't impossible though, our SAAS is Open Source and we survive, though yes, some customers do choose to self host. You just end up with fewer enterprise customers and more smaller clients.