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Or c) Those who are interested in tech and the possibility of a open-source self-hosted option, but too busy to install and maintain it so also paying for a subscription like those in category (a).

We (my small research group) chose it over Authorea and others because of this possibility and implication that we won't get caught in a vendor lock-in situation in the future.

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Exactly! That's what I meant by "possibly both, but only one at a time". At the moment you're in group (a), but might shift to group (b) later. I'd guess that if and when that shift occurs, we'd lose you as a paid user, regardless of whether we had an open-source version or not. This way at least you get an easier transition, and you'd still be using 'ShareLaTeX' which helps us from a brand recognition POV.

I have to applaud your attitude. And your strategy. It's actually pretty clever to support the host your own so people can see it's a way to avoid lock-in.

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