[seanwilson]

> Maybe I'm old school, but I really hope developers give a serious thought before jumping into this vendor lock-in trap.

What vendor lock-in do you mean though? If you're using AWS, Google or Heroku, they all support Node, Python and PHP for instance and have several options for file storage, SQL and NoSQL. Migrating away is always going to be painful (although you can make this easier for yourself with abstractions in your code) but you can still host on cloud services in ways that don't tie you in.

I agree if you start heavily relying on features that only one company provides you might be in for some trouble but hosting + coding it all yourself carries significant risk as well.

[scaryclam]

I get the feeling the OP was talking more about things like Firebase than EC2 or Cloud Compute. Of course, GCP and AWS will allow you to do things that lock you in, but as you stated, you don't have to do that to use their other products.

The idea that some people are using other companies backend systems to build their own company that completely relies on those systems creeps me out.

If I hire a backend developer who creates an API that talks to my DB, then that developer walks away, at least I can continue with my business while I run around finding a new developer. I don't need a new codebase and I don't need to shutdown operations. If a hosting company goes under but I host my own code there, at least I can redeploy elsewhere and get on with life. If I use a BaaS company and they go under/discontinue my hosting/etc then I can neither move, or hire another company to continue the work. I have to start again, and for anything significant, that's probably going to kill my company first.

[dzhiurgis]

Salesforce has been running essentially a BaaS for nearly two decades and they show no sign of slowing down.

IMHO their platform is garbage compared to something like Firebase, but no businesses seem to be worried about portability. In fact most are doubling down on building teams to build and support Salesforce.

[yellowapple]

"In fact most are doubling down on building teams to build and support Salesforce."

I'd sooner attribute that to Stockholm syndrome, in much the same way that Oracle shops tend to double down on Oracle products - not because Oracle products are actually good, mind you (they're absolutely abysmal, in my observation, and even the ones acquired from Sun are rotting corpses at this point, Java being perhaps the sole exception), but because it's cheaper to keep buying in than to break out of the vendor lock-in.

[seanwilson]

Sounds like we agree then! I'd rather stick to generic technologies so I can migrate away if needed. If the service being offered gave a big advantage but didn't have any realistic migration paths then I'd be very cautious. All I mean is that between the major cloud providers there's a decent overlap of common services you can use such that the advantages are hard to ignore. I think we're at the stage where doing everything yourself with some generic VPSs or your own machines isn't economical or productive if you value your time in a lot of cases.