What is more profitable - to pay for updates to your box to OS or switch to the cloud?

Here it is worth telling how the box actually differs from the cloud. These are very different products.
PRO BOXES
When a client buys a box, he pays for its cost, we upload it to the client's server, we check that it works. Then in the next second, all responsibility passes to the client. We do not make backup copies, we do not monitor the client's server at all. If the client's server dies, we have no backups, all we can do is upload a clean OneBox again, and then for money.
The client pays $5/user/month or $50/user/year just so that we update his box to the new version, and if he asks a question on the forum - we can answer it. All. Nothing more is implied, no guarantees are given.
PRO CLOUD
(What I will write here about the cloud concerns OneBox OS, not MVP versions. We are currently in the process of moving to a new infrastructure, but roughly in 3-6 months the entire cloud will be the same as I wrote below)
In short: the cloud is much more reliable.
If detailed:
- when a client chooses a cloud, we allocate two virtual machines under OneBox, which are physically located in different countries in different data centers. One in Germany (FSN1), the second in Finland (HEL1).
- each VPS has its own separate IP, which is located behind the firewall (in simple words, DDoS protection).
- the load balancer directs all requests to the first VPS in Germany. If he stops responding or dies, then automatically on the second one in Helsinki, which will become the master. This applies not only to databases, but to everything in general, including the entire file system.
- VPS are replicated among themselves in real time. If the first one dies, then the maximum data loss will be in a couple of seconds, and then in theory.
- Every day both VPS are backed up in THREE COUNTRIES in THREE DIFFERENT DATA CENTERS. Every day.
- We keep backup copies for 10 days (we declare 10, but in reality 30+).
- If you need to deploy a backup, then we have a recovery speed of about 1 gigabyte per minute. That is, we will restore a typical 30 GB OneBox in a maximum of 30 minutes.
And all this, in a fully automatic mode, without human intervention.
That's what the customer pays for in the cloud. It is simply not realistic for a business that does not understand IT to independently build and maintain such an infrastructure.
PS: and by the way, this is exactly the technical reason why OneBox OS does not have an online store. If the online store is not separated into separate servers, then it is impossible to make such replication of virtual machines and thus secure the data. The channel width is simply not enough to replicate everything in real time.