To answer a few points there, the reality is the market share of self hosting versus our cloud products is small, to the point something had to be done in order to make it a viable proposition. I know you say there "but since the market for self-hosting has shrunk down in the eyes of the company", but this is not something that is just in our eyes. Its more a mathematical fact. The self-hosted product is a small percentage of our customers. That percentage has been shrinking year on year, and our cloud product has been increasing significantly year on year. So in answer to this, we had 2 options really. One of those was to remove self-hosted completely, and the other was to make the product sustainable from a company perspective. We have chosen the latter to ensure the product is viable for us to provide to our customers.
We understand that our classic self-hosted solution may be too expensive for some, and that's really ok. As you mentioned, there are other solutions out there that people can use that are at a lower price point.
If what you see as the competing products are not an option because they aren't as good and don't do what you need, there is probably good reason why they are cheaper in price.
Of course, we do indeed offer an alternative to people, and thats cloud 🙂