It IS explained, but it is not on an obvious page for new/novice users or people interested in Hub Protect. I was just going by the screenshot provided much earlier on that page that shows the Hub Protect features. That is the type of place you would want that (wherever that screenshot came from).
Plus, I just checked on the https://my.hubitat.com/ page about the subscriptions… and there is no obvious page for what the subscriptions ARE or the benefits of them. There is the page for what subscriptions I currently have (Hubitat Protect) but what if I wanted Hubitat Cloud or the Bundle? Nothing I saw that clearly shows what other subscriptions are available, the differences between them, how I could change/upgrade…
So that is part of the process of getting people interested in it. Making it easy and obvious.
Heck, I just looked at mine in more detail and it appears easy to cancel (although the history shows repeated cancels and completed orders for some reason). I also realize I need to change the card associated. 
It also has an Upgrade button (to what?, I ASSUMED Protect + Cloud because I know about it, but that is not actually stated). Clicking on it takes me to a page of GLORIUS information that should be obvious elsewhere and easy to see.
Really, how would one claim that?
You can get a discount if you're replacing a hub under the Protect warranty.
Ah...Thanks for pointing that out! That page was available a couple of years ago, but it was removed when we updated the backend. It was only an informational page with no actions users could take, and it ended up causing a lot of confusion. Removing it helped simplify the experience.
Please put sections for Support and Subscriptions at the bottom of the App and Web home page.
Then remove them from all the other pages where Support and Subscriptions are buried. A new user and one who hasn't recently used those links will have a hard time finding them.
On the Support home page have two links, one to the Hubitat Company links and add one to directly create a support request.
and one to the resources.
The subscription page should show the current subscriptions then the great display that @snell showed in his latest post
Thanks for pointing that out. It reminded us that we need to update some screenshots based on how my.hubitat.com/subscriptions page looks today.
Just one perspective: I initially bought the hub because it was all local. I was fixated on that.
So when I heard about hub protect I did not even think it applied to me. I’m doing everything local, including backing up locally.
I did not bother to learn about Hub Protect until my hub went bezerk. There was a power outage, and when the power came back on, there were about 3-5 on/off cycles in a few seconds, and my hub did not like that. I ended up having to rebuild it. No big deal I thought - I will reset it and install my backup. It was not until I realized I had to repair every single device that I learned about Hub Protect.
Figure out a way to get the message to people that are the type I was before the above incident and have no idea they will need to re-pair every device if they have to reset the hub.
Then real Hub Protect should/must include a complete 100% local backup. There must not be any cloud dependency. Sky always must be free of any “lovely“ clouds.
Well that would be ideal…
But after using the hub for almost 5 years I’ve become enamoured with it, and with the Hubitat company, and want them to do well. I suspect their business model requires them to sell subscriptions, and I want them to stay in business. But before I bought the hub I was VERY opposed to anything that required a subscription.
Even after I bought it and heard about Hub Protect, I was wary - I did not want any company to have the info on my hub.
This reminds me that one of my concerns with Hub Protect was what Hubitat does with my info, and what commitments they have to not monetize it beyond the subscription.
So to answer the question about improving Hub Protect, it seems to be all about communcation
- Communicate what it is (and isn’t)
- What Hubitat does not (and does) do with the info they have on the hub from subscribers
- Why users would (or would not) want to subscribe
When 6 years ago I permanently relocated to Florida I started to look for what to use for automating my new Florida apartment. Before I was using Insteon (after X10) and I was very happy with. But Insteon was dying so I was looking for the good replacement. I quickly found out that everything is could-baseed. To my EE eyes sticking in entire Internet infrastructure between Switch and Bulb was absolutely no go. And ops, I found a Hubitat with 100% local control. This immediately became a solution and I am very happy with Hubitat. So, yes a I absolutely want Hubitat to stay in business and sure, a subscription model I a way stay afloat. But my point is/was - enable 100% local backup for subscribers like a cloud-based. I really don't see what could be wrong with this. But I might be missing something.
I think you might be too.
I’m no EE, but I believe there’s something about not just backing up and restoring to the same hub, but also to a physically different hub, that made them pursue the cloud-based path.
Could they have made it possible to restore a full backup (including Z radio data) to the same hub with a fully local workflow? I don’t know.
Did business reasons/subscription-generating opportunities influence the decisions they made re: hub backups? Anything’s possible but none of us (the users) know anything about how their business works.
Each hub has a hard coded unique idea. This for sure could be used to restrict a restore only to the same hub which created a backup.
The idea of Hub Protect allowing for full local backup with online verification to the same hub and or replacement hub is a good idea.
It would potentially allow more worry free general recover and reduce any cloud dependent deployment issues.
If Hub Protect is tied to your account and a hub, and at least online verification is done, then the revenue stream is supported still.
I bought a C-8 Pro a long time ago but never set it up. Yeah that’s sorta dumb, but my C-4, C-7, and 2 C-8 were all working fine. 
I signed up for the Hub Protect bundle while I was at it, which was easy enough.
Reread the migration docs a few times. My experience didn’t 100% match the docs, but was close enough.
Took a migration backup of my one C-8 and went to migrate the cloud backup. It failed to take a bunch of times, if I recall it was a generic or general error. I got kinda worried for a minute, but it finally took after the 5th or 6th time I think.
I don’t think the issue was cloud connectivity related, but taking that out of the equation would be nice.
I guess better backup, install, error reporting would be nice too.
My interpretation of what staff have said over the years is that it isn't possible to do a local radio backup and restore. The online process does something to make this possible.
If you go way back to the beginning of backup and restore, back in the C5 or maybe early C7 days, there were statements that alluded to this cloud process being necessary.
I have a very hard time to believe the cloud involvement in a radio backup is a must and fixes whatever problem. What would be a technical difference (other than ip address) for sending packets to the cloud or to the local storage? The only reason I can think about - is to protect unauthorized access to the full backup (the one which has all radios related data. But using the unique Hub ID will do this job perfectly. My good guess - the problem is not technical but rather whatever business related.
A soft reset is what should have been tried first. You could then reload the database with the local backup.
A full hard reset is rarely needed.
One suggestion I think I would make, although not truly related to the Protect subscription, is a more prominent link to troubleshooting that goes through this scenario an a few other common ones. I know that the information I just mentioned is available in the documentation if you know what to search for. But it would be great to have a "when to reset" - "what type of reset should I do" and maybe even a "have you tried a soft reset first" warning on the reset process (if using the diagnostic tool)
You can choose to believe it, or not. I had private conversations with staff back then, and they have always cited technical issues, and not the desire to make profits as the reason. The staff members actually said they wanted to do local backup and restore, but it didn't work as desired.
Maybe this stems from various hub chipsets, maybe it is a Silabs requirement, maybe it is because of support ticket issues. I don't know other than reasons like these that have been cited in the forums over the years.
I suspect that cloud backup fee is about what it costs to maintain your data for a period of time, and not some money making operation. Off-site automatic backup can also be desirable in case something tragic happens like a house fire, lightning strike, or the hub was lost/stolen.
I do really want a truly local hub, but I can compromise a bit here, and hopefully support Hubitat development at the same time.
I tried that. Did not work…
It was needed in my case.