If we don't pay for a subscription, Arlo Pro4 is worthless now

[BoomerRed]

I bought this 3 pack of cameras seeing that we could have activity zones, see recordings for at least right after they happened, use alerts etc. 

However after we had a dismal experience with customer support about our cameras running out of battery quickly and activity zones not working, I am quite frustrated to learn that if we don't pay to play here then we also can't see any recordings, use most of the features we bought these for etc.

So now these are window treatments. If we happen to get an alert and look live right at that moment, we have no idea why the camera went off.  If we don't subscribe to cloud storage (which we don't need) then we can't see what happened overnight and why it went off.  

Completely useless now and I might as well just let them run out of battery. I'm no safer now in my home.  Thanks a lot.  I already purchased these for $400!  What a rip off. I could have gotten ADT with monitored service and free cameras installed and paid the same.  With a professional service behind it.  We only wanted these to make sure that we could see what's going on outside. Now they are completely useless and they want more money.  

I may as well throw these away.