> Most of these cloud connected cameras always stream footage through their cloud service, regardless of whether you pay for a subscription. Because people don't know how to configure port forwarding, etc, in their firewall.

No consumer product should have users do port-forwarding or punch holes in the firewall. You don't want an IoT device on your network accepting packets from the internet.

The proper way to do this is with a cloud server arbitrating connections, which is what a lot of products do.

The reason most consumers want cloud storage isn't for ease of access, though. It's because they want the footage stored securely somewhere. If the thief can just pick up your camera and walk away with the evidence, it's not very useful to you.