It isn't always clear what that timesaving would be, though. We have to factor in the marginal utility and alternative cost with every- and anything the resourc

It isn't always clear what that timesaving would be, though. We have to factor in the marginal utility and alternative cost with every- and anything the resources in question thinks about doing (or does.) Not writing the admin tool might save time in the short term. But as I'm serving you with reports from the database and changes directly in it, I'm not doing other productive work. So you get the reports sooner and the time it takes to give you one is pretty quick. But that task could have been done by you if you knew SQL. Or a junior programmer. Or by the admin tool. And I could have spent that time developing customer features (or the admin tool.)