If I'm drawing an analogy here, owning your server and hosting your own services is like having your own house and having a SAAS is like renting a house.

A lot of people want to own their house while too many service/hardware providers are trying to be your landlords.

This is a cool idea but I think having a mandatory subscription killed it for me. It does not even provide an illusion that I can still have my own services intact and running indefinitely no matter what happens to or at the service provider. This is especially crucial when you consider how much of a pain switching email is.

Do I move out of Google just to be dependent on another company that requires a subscription for the illusion of owning my data? On top of that I have to deal with all the hassle that comes with it? I don't think so.