Running a program, as a service or not,
isn't redistribution. It is use.
The original spirit of the GPL is about identifying people doing bad things we don't like and trying to prevent them. All those bad things have to do with redistribution, not with using the program.
The AGPL is still about identifying people doing bad things we don't like, except now those people are just running the program.
This is no different from Adobe, Apple, Microsoft, ... identifying people using their software in ways they don't like, and crafting their EULA terms to turn those activities into a license violation.
A free software license simply cannot dictate uses, like where and how you run the program, and who can access it from where.
A free software license can only use copyright law, and only be concerned with copying.
EULAs go beyond coypright; they try to connect non-copying activities to copyright by the doctrine that if the user engages in the forbidden activities, their license is terminated (and thus it becomes copyright infringement for them to continue to have a now unlicensed copy of the software).
The original spirit of the GPL is about identifying people doing bad things we don't like and trying to prevent them. All those bad things have to do with redistribution, not with using the program.
The AGPL is still about identifying people doing bad things we don't like, except now those people are just running the program.
This is no different from Adobe, Apple, Microsoft, ... identifying people using their software in ways they don't like, and crafting their EULA terms to turn those activities into a license violation.
A free software license simply cannot dictate uses, like where and how you run the program, and who can access it from where.
A free software license can only use copyright law, and only be concerned with copying.
EULAs go beyond coypright; they try to connect non-copying activities to copyright by the doctrine that if the user engages in the forbidden activities, their license is terminated (and thus it becomes copyright infringement for them to continue to have a now unlicensed copy of the software).