[andrewxdiamond]

I think it’s important to “own” what makes you different.

Running your own servers isn’t that important and probably isn’t what makes you different. EC2, Azure VMs or whatever short term project Google is running for compute are all extremely comparable, and you loose very little by using them.

But if your business is owning and operating an IoT platform for your customers, you should invest in a high quality solution, not just buying the off-the-shelf tool. It may be that a provider’s offering is better than what you can do, but it better be a lot better if you use it.

The point is to invest heavily in what actually makes a difference, vertically integrate what matters, externalize what doesn’t.

[robertlagrant]

Slightly disagree. The important thing is to externalise things that multiple providers support. So externalise hosting Postgres, because 20 companies exist that do that. Don't externalise a one of a kind service you can't build against using open standards. Insource that.

[drunkenmagician]

A slight variation I prefer, and strongly advocate is ‘own (or control) what makes you successful’. It may not be unique, and doesn’t imply always building it yourself, but you should be in control of those things.

[gerdesj]

I think it is important to mostly be in charge of your own destiny too.

When my doorbell (Doorbird) goes off at home the following happens:

* A real chime sounds (battery backed, mains powered, no internet required) * Native app goes ape shit and twitters (often about two hours later) * Home Assistant app kicks in on queue and does what I tell it to: Speakers speak, SMS sent etc