I think I'd be fine _using_ an AGPL+CLA product, but not contributing.
Thats exactly the point.
I'm not sure if we're agreeing or not to be honest. I'm not sure if you're implying it's a bad thing that people won't contribute to AGPL+CLA (and thereby justifies these more restrictive licenses), or agreeing that people shouldn't contribute to AGPL+CLA (and thereby volunteer their time to the benefit of one specific vendor).
Re:HashiCorp Adopts Business Source License
by bawolff on Friday August 11, 2023 @10:10PM
(#37096275)
Whether or not someone contributes to something and under what terms is a personal choice. I dont think there is anything wrong with not contributing for any reason at all. Or if you dont like the cla, forking it and not using a cla in your fork.
I view that as a very different question from whether its ethical to advertize something agpl+cla as being open source.
Which is fine imo as long as the moment they pull the bait/switch they stop calling it open source (and others can fork at that point)