The Red Hat model only worked for Red Hat
(Note: I work for Red Hat)I'm constantly amazed that people still don't understand why Red Hat makes money, and this article won't enlighten you as it doesn't understand it as well as being full of other incidental mistakes (like their description of CentOS is way off the mark).Red Hat takes Linux and certifies it against all kinds of government, safety, privacy etc standardards, such as PCI and FIPS and numerous local ones.  As a result if you are a government or many large companies you simply cannot download Linux and YOLO it.  You are legally required to use the certified software so you take the path of least resistance and buy RHEL.  That's it.  It's why Red Hat makes piles of money, and Canonical or your SaaS does not.  Understand what your big customers are required to have and provide it to them, even though it's boring and expensive to do.