You don't appear to value independence and autonomy, which is why I'm having such a hard time reconciling what you're saying. While I might not actually want t

You don't appear to value independence and autonomy, which is why I'm having such a hard time reconciling what you're saying. While I might not actually want to immediately inspect the source of software we rely on, I might need to later on. We might have artistic differences to the direction of the product. We might need to change or adapt it after we have grown. The pricing structure might change dramatically The SaaS might get bought, retired, hacked, DDoSsed. International law might change meaning we can't use it due to its servers' locations (eg GDPR hassles). Our customers might need security audits that the service is unwilling to go through for us. The reasons for possibly needing to spin up your own instance of the software are broad and dynamic. And they're not stretches. I've migrated to self-hosted versions of things for more than one of these reasons. It seems odd that you would say you'd "never" want that sort of freedom. Don't build your castle on somebody else's land, and all that.