If your business depends on some form of closed-source codebase, than yes, an AGPL codebase will not suit your need. But from an opensource developer perspective it doesn't matter. For example, if you release your source code under the more freer license (like BSD, MIT or Apache), you can indeed close source your code. But so can others. I can use your source code, add more features to it, and close source it. I would be under no obligation to share my code with you, while also having the right to use your code as I please. This is not so with the AGPL. An AGPL + CLA makes this explicit - a developer has to voluntarily give away this right with a CLA. (And this gives developers some additional leverage).