I did a full security system replacement for my previous employer in our data center. Replaced all the old IP cameras that connected directly to a small black box nvr with UniFi camera recording onto a UniFi Video server writing to a NAS cable locked to the rack in our locked data center. Two months later UniFi Video was discontinued and stopped receiving updates or support. If we wanted a supported platform we had to purchase a UniFi Protect NVR with less storage and less power/network redundancy than what I built. Plus all access to UniFi Protect would run through their cloud portal.

Yes I'm still bitter.

Guh.

This makes me wonder if it's inevitable for every hardware/software provider to be tempted by the candy now. Makes me ask myself if I could even resist it if I had a customer base with sunk costs who I could take advantage of. My feeling is that I could resist it, on principle, but most people wouldn't. And this is leaving out pressure from investors.

So such a company selling these solutions as locally run widgets - which we understand are under not just pressure to increase revenue, but also relentless pressure from governments to share their data - would definitely need to be completely self-funded, immediately profitable, and the solutions they sold would have to be permanent and not susceptible to any external market or government forces.

Zero updates and zero tracking of installations would be the goal.

[edit] but this is also not that hard. All the company needs to provide is a piece of software that stitches together existing hardware. The only updates would be when hardware updates, and those would be included in the price. If "NEVER CLOUD" was the company's entire corporate identity, then preserving that ethos would be a mandate.

[edit2] nevercloud.com is currently on sale for $8350. I'd suggest building the prime directive into the name, but that much money has better uses.