Absolutely. The value is in the service you provide, not in the code. Lets assume a potential competitor takes all your code and makes a carbon copy of what yo

Absolutely. The value is in the service you provide, not in the code. Lets assume a potential competitor takes all your code and makes a carbon copy of what you're offering. - Will any of your customers jump ship? Probably not, there is no incentive if the service that you offer is good. - Will 50% of new customers automatically go to them? Probably not, not unless they are better at marketing than you, are offering a better service, at a lower cost, etc. - Will all of your customers that would pay for your service use your code and host it themselves? Probably not. The people who would host it themselves are probably a completely different demographic from those who are looking for a hosted solution. Ultimately it all comes down to how good of a service you offer. If you charge $10 and give me a hosted solution that I can set up in minutes, there is no reason for me to spend hours of my own time setting up and configuring it only to have the exact same thing, just based on how much my time would be worth, if you're charging $10-15 dollars per month for this service, I would have to keep paying you every month for 2-3 years before I even break even on how much money I sacrifice by doing it myself. There are dozens of products I pay for and use every day where the vast majority of what makes them up is completely open source. I can take all the code, and create everything that that product is, but why? I'm perfectly happy using that service. The creator keeps it updated, secure, takes care of the hosting etc. And I'm more than happy to support them financially.