Wow, that's awful.

I have a few Ubiquiti devices I haven't updated in months, that don't use any cloud accounts, and I used to run their controller software in a container that I only started when I needed to administer something. But now I guess I'm never updating and will be looking to get rid of all their equipment.

What an incredibly consumer hostile and incompetent company. Shame, because the hardware pretty much works reliably.

Im a bit confused by this. I run a UniFi Controller in a docker container, have a few APs and a router, and everything works fine. No cloud stuff going on here.

Am i just lucky or something that i havent been forced to the cloud yet, or is it something i am missing here?

I think its just the cloud key. I have a unifi controller install as well and use a local account with no issues.

I have a cloud key with no cloud access. It's just that cloud access is the user directed workflow for sure. Setup without cloud access was not clear at all [1].

[1]: I don't even remember the steps, to be honest!