[hamsterbooster]

Totally agree that library is easier to maintain and for developer to use. However, services are a lot easier to monetize and allow the company to collect any data they want. I can't think of any billion dollar companies that release their core library to the users.

[jacobr1]

Libraries can also be a PITA to maintain when you need to maintain widespread platform support, including for legacy/crufy systems. I quite enjoy the freedom of owning the underlying platform with cloud deployments vs my on-prem software days.