I suppose I did not list this because it is a social factor rather than a technical factor and I simply wasn't thinking in those terms. This is a major point t

I suppose I did not list this because it is a social factor rather than a technical factor and I simply wasn't thinking in those terms. This is a major point though. I spent time at Travelocity, Orbitz, and Expedia. All three companies were (not any more) direct competitors based in far away geographies. Regardless of that I was utterly astonished by how similar the work cultures and technology were. Everything was being run from archaic centralized giant monolithic Java applications using nearly identical technology stacks and it was always an incredibly slow and painful experience to update, extend, or maintain the beast. The business solution was always the same: hire more developers until market conditions present financial barriers.