They've been at this for a while. They do have offerings you subscribe for and pay monthly. They have also consistently offered an option for each of those offerings to bring your own or self host. They've earned my trust.
Once you invest thousands in network equipment or cameras you’re less likely to jump ship when they start sneaking things in. And this is long lived equipment, not the kind you anyway replace every couple of years. So that’s a relatively strong lock-in.
The usual trend that the smaller upsets compete on cost until they get higher and higher volume and work their way into higher and higher end markets. Ubiquiti 10 years ago was mostly doing volume for small niche ISPs or prosumers at home, now it's got enormous gains in SMB & products aimed at enterprise. I don't think they'll just stop at where they are, focus will keep shifting to wherever they think they can grow to rather than where they've had success before.
Boy I hope Broadcom didn’t hear that…
My "NAS" is a NUC with a couple drives plugged into it using a USB DAS. apt install zfs samba, and away you go.
I could split up the functions into different boxes and build a faster LAN to connect them, but doing that wouldn't improve anything except giving me more parts to goof around with. :)
In my opinion, as long as the majority of their profits come from people continuing to buy the self-host devices, it is fairly unlikely they'll ever stop offering those devices. Why change a working business model?
Yes, subscription models are enticing for that recurring revenue... number must go up, right? /s
If a majority of your sales are not in subscription products though, I think it would be foolish for a business to blow off its own leg trying to chase that particular dragon.
Then again... businesses have made dumber calls in the past out of nowhere...