> There's plenty of companies that wasted a ton of resources trying to roll their own version of things that should be services. Remember when Uber built their own chat solution? [0]
Sure, there's obviously a big difference between controlling the things that are critical to your business and wasting time outside your core competencies. And part of that difference is the risk profile: if your entire backend disappears, and takes the API your frontend is built around and all of the data with it, you're basically up shit creek. If your chat app of choice disappears, you can sign the company up for a different one tomorrow – it doesn't take 8 months of crunch to "port" your employees, and likely all of your critical business docs weren't in the form of chat history.
> Lot of companies shut down or fail for lots of reasons. I think a business should focus on what they do best and what's critical to their mission.
Agreed. But very few internet companies can claim that the data in their datastore and the entire mechanism by which their product accesses said data is not critical to their business, which is the distinguishing factor here.
Sure, there's obviously a big difference between controlling the things that are critical to your business and wasting time outside your core competencies. And part of that difference is the risk profile: if your entire backend disappears, and takes the API your frontend is built around and all of the data with it, you're basically up shit creek. If your chat app of choice disappears, you can sign the company up for a different one tomorrow – it doesn't take 8 months of crunch to "port" your employees, and likely all of your critical business docs weren't in the form of chat history.
> Lot of companies shut down or fail for lots of reasons. I think a business should focus on what they do best and what's critical to their mission.
Agreed. But very few internet companies can claim that the data in their datastore and the entire mechanism by which their product accesses said data is not critical to their business, which is the distinguishing factor here.