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I wonder if and how you plan this economically, like adding a future cost for each hour of work sunk into the platform. Where you eventually reach a margin wher
by z3t4 10y ago
I wonder if and how you plan this economically, like adding a future cost for each hour of work sunk into the platform. Where you eventually reach a margin where it's no longer economical to sunk more hours into the irreplaceable.
- jrochkind1 10y agoI think the "sunk cost fallacy" is related here, although I'm not sure how to draw it out. In general, it seem obvious if any third-party platform is irreplaceable for your business, you are running a significant risk. I'm not sure "irreplaceable" is always correlated with number of hours you've sunk into it. It could be irreplaceable despite having very few hours sunk into it. Also, even if you've sunk a bazillion hours into it, if there's a viable replacement that could be put into place _without_ spending a corresponding bazillion hours on it, it might not be irreplaceable at all. (This part might be the 'sunk cost fallacy' -- just cause you've spent a lot of hours on it, doesn't neccesarily mean it would be a bad idea to throw all that away and start over -- if you can afford to.) Anyway, the hard part, of course, is avoiding an irreplaceable dependency on a third-party platform. Especially because using such third-party platforms significantly decreases your total cost to launch or operate. The trick is figuring out how to take advantage without making them irreplaceable. I'm not sure there are any obvious or easy answers. Using the option with the smallest market share, as the OP suggests, might help encourage a better marketplace, but probably _increases_ your actual direct local risk.