> Independent teams (each developing independent services and acting without top-down approval) is a different way to coordinate development that values product

> Independent teams (each developing independent services and acting without top-down approval) is a different way to coordinate development that values productivity (keeping everyone unblocked) and innovation (finding better ways of doing things). I've had the opposite experience. In the monolith, anyone can make the necessary changes, because it's all one codebase that everyone is familiar with. At most, you might need some help/pairing/approvals from experts in particular areas, but in general any team can work independently. By comparison, in the microservices world, many teams either don't want you to touch their service, or are using a tech stack so unfamiliar to you that it would take too long to be productive. And there's a rat's nest of interdependent microservices, so you end up begging other teams to adjust their roadmap to fit you in. > Independent teams can pursue very different patterns without needing to agree with each other. I see this as more downside than benefit. If everyone is using different tech stacks, it's harder for people to move between and contribute to different teams. And you end up with situations where one team uses Java, while another uses Scala, which brings in extra complexity to satisfy what are essentially aesthetic preferences.