Even then, I have a feeling that people jump too quickly from a "messy monolith" to microservices. Instead, people should start splitting up the monolith into

Even then, I have a feeling that people jump too quickly from a "messy monolith" to microservices. Instead, people should start splitting up the monolith into sensible modules and libraries. Instead of a "user accounts microservice", start with a "user accounts library" with a well-documented API that stays in the main codebase and is deployed as part of the rest of the app.