[rlonn]

I agree, but often the alternative to using a service that offers painless onboarding, is to not do anything. I.e. you want to do X, and you're trying to find out how. You find product/service/component A, B and C that offers frictionless onboarding, and it allows you to get started on X. If, on the other hand, you find A, B and C that all require you to spend a couple of days learning their APIs etc, then you may never get started on X because the task becomes too big. There is a lot to be said for getting started on something. Components can always be replaced.