[scottwick]

I'm very much the same way. For a lot of lower-effort SaaS offerings I look at them and think: "I can't believe people pay for this when I can replicate the parts I need with a few Python scripts or a simple Rails app". The things I am willing to pay for are often much more ambitious businesses and would likely require far more effort than I'm willing to devote (i.e. things like Digital Ocean or Fastmail).

[hitsurume]

I'm going to use what you said to go on a little rant: One of the things that has jaded me the most in my career so far is dealing with people who want to spend company money purely for self-gain / promotion. Spending 50k-60k on software that no one asked for, and forced to integrate with, because it allows some manager to say they achieved X on their resume. Especially when I can just write something inhouse in less then a week that will do the same basic functionality, but wouldn't be as valuable because it wasn't built by a fully dedicated team or has the backing and support of company Y.