FWIW, building your own tools/workflows on top of a standard software typically dramatically increase the lock-in in my experience.
It is typically non-trivial to port this functionality to a new system.
So it would be in favor of existing SaaS vendors.
Comparing re-sale price of Tesla to Ford is absurd.
Elon Musk alienated most of Tesla‘s potential customers.
I would assume more of the price drop comes from that than from anything inherent about EVs.
You still do from operating the software.
You see what problems users have using it, which types of problems they tackle with it.
By the end of running the software for a month you will have typically learned a boat load.