Company integrity/actually wanting to empower users. This unreasonably forces dependency on the company and bricks the device once support inevitably ends. That's usually a pretty good indication for a user-hostile company.
I think there is a potential issue with the overall concept and dichotomy between "owning" a device to "own" your data, and using external services that must be rented to make that happen. But it sounds like a fixable marketing/communication issue. To elaborate:
Considering R&D and manufacture, it looks to me like you're offering the box itself at cost or even below. Your obvious competitor is Synology, and they have an extensible storage space concept.
So I agree with you that the meat is probably in the Apps. You're offering an email solution as the killer subscription service using somewhat questionable marketing text. But again, that can be fixed. If you were to say "okay, we're planning on offering a range of subscription apps where the core concept is to provide a public-internet service endpoint and the resulting data gets funneled directly into your home box" then you're much clearer about the value you provide and customers would have an expectation that a) their app still works if the subscription expires (it just doesn't get any new data) and b) what they're paying for in the first place. Throw in an info graph that shows the data flow!
Of course, you might have to contend with open source implementations that offer the same endpoint services as a self-hosted option BUT you could even embrace that and make the protocols open because I suspect that the convenience of your all-in-one services would trump the complexity of self hosting in most cases.
Other services/apps you could offer along the same lines could be: federated social media, video downloading and conversion, video and audio chat, collaboration and office tools, home automation, and of course cloud backup (not the paltry 128GB currently folded into the subscription package, but a separate pay-as-you-go solution with "unlimited" storage).
The subscription not being optional ("We don't make the subscription optional at this time", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28351035), with unspecified consequences of not having one.
One thing I definitely gather from that comment is that E-Mails wouldn't work, which appears to be the main selling point of the device.
There is an ongoing cost for email to work (static IP, DNS, tunneling for traffic) - this is why there is a subscription. It's not very complicated or malicious.
If a customer doesn't want a subscription, they can still use the Helm on their local network and get access to all their data. Running without a subscription is not something we currently support because of a lot of variables that can prevent email from working consistently, creating a heavy support burden (which is costly) along with bad customer experiences. It's best for people wary of a subscription to go down the DIY path (and we end up with a lot of DIY switchers once they realize how much effort it is).
So it sounds like if you are acquired/close shop/triple your fees, the hardware will continue working with a limited feature set forever. If HN-type people are at all your target market, I’d make this a lot clearer somewhere. After the umpteenth time, people are wary of hardware that randomly turns into bricks. It’s got nothing to do with “big tech”.
> Running without a subscription is not something we currently support because of a lot of variables that can prevent email from working consistently
No problem. I see the technical difficulties with that and that you don’t want to support it. But is it possible?
If you want peoples’ (definitely mine) trust I’d suggest clearly decoupling the subscription from the device and communicating that it’s only for the E-Mail routing.
Otherwise it feels like renting a device with some extra initial cost, which is like 20% as good as actually owning something (If I’m already renting just take away the setup cost and make it 12$/mo).
