I find presenting this as an open source alternative to commercial solutions a little disingenuous when any commercial use of it also requires a paid license. Like many other cases it seems like the AGPL is functioning more as a trial license.
Well, I would say it depends. We have many companies using the AGPL version without buying a license. We also know that some companies have strict policies and will forbid using AGPL software unless taking a commercial license. We're happy with both users.
I like the example of Grafana with all their AGPL projects (Grafana, Loki, Tempo, ...). There are a LOT of companies using Grafana with the AGPL version.
You can double license software and have a non-AGPL license for customers. AGPL is a must nowadays to avoid Amazon and other giant companies like it to "steal" your project and start offering the same thing initially (2-3) cheaper while you are going out of business.
Ianal, but afaik one is required to release patches to the product itself only if product functionality is exposed to customers. If it is internal tool, patches I believe can stay internal. But if you want to offer, for example, hosted solution based on this product - then you are required to release modifications.
I find AGPL perfect for this use case, and my org (>100k hosts) can use it without any problem as we are using it for internal purposes, and not, say, rebranding it and offering as a part of our own product.
