Hi Deftones, hi everyone!
I'm sorry you feel this way about PrestaShop Cloud. Perhaps I can change your mind if I clarify a couple of things that seem to be a bit blurry. The blurry is not surprising, since the hosted solution is all new (and shiny!), let me clear it up for you:
For security reasons, you can't access the database on a shop powered by PrestaShop Cloud. You're right on that part. PrestaShop Download and PrestaShop Cloud are two different ways to access the software, and the fact that the access to a shop's database is different whether it's hosted by PrestaShop or by yourself makes perfect sense. Think of WordPress.com: you can't access your database on a website hosted by WordPress.
Speaking of WordPress (which we absolutely love as a content CMS), did you know that you don't have any FTP access for your site on WordPress.com? With PrestaShop Cloud, you can access - and edit - the Theme directory, the Modules directory, and the Override directory. That must mean something to you, right?
With additional modules it's the same. Since PrestaShop is hosting your online store, with the Cloud version, we are liable (for you) for the security and stability of your online store. We cannot have users install external modules that don't meet PrestaShop Addons code standards. Which is why you can only install a module on your store if it's sold on the official PrestaShop Addons marketplace. Again, nothing new for a website that's hosted for you, no software company with a model similar to PrestaShop Cloud ever allowed you to install "untrusted" external modules.
PrestaShop Cloud is the most open SaaS software you've ever seen. More open than what's ever been done in the cloud.
We want to provide our PrestaShop Cloud users with the best Ecommerce experience they've ever had and we think PrestaShop Cloud is the best thing that could happen to the least tech savvy merchants out there, while still offering freedom to customize their store if they learn a bit of PHP and HTML.
I hope I succeeded in make things clearer