alt Hacker NewsBackend under AGPL prevents someone hosting it as a service. AGPL specifies that hosting _is_ distribution. Therefore, anyone hosting it must do so with public code. This provides a soft form of exclusivity to run their own Cloud.
A frontend, permitting customizability, white-labeling, and so on, makes more sense to be more permissive.
Grafana is a solid example to illustrate why.
Moved from Apache to AGPLv3 in 2021 specifically so cloud providers couldn't host modified versions without contributing back, while keeping plugins Apache-licensed.
Prohibiting a user of your software from modifying it and using it to run their business goes against both freedoms 0 and 1.
This “users are obligated ‘give back’ the moment they make money with the gift they were given” is nonsense and anyone paying attention knows it. A business making money using free software doesn’t take anything away from the releasing organization.
The anti-commerce bent of a subset of the free software zealots hate business so much that they tried to smuggle a EULA into the free software community. It’s nonsensical. Furthermore, the AGPL has never once been tested in court.