From my few years in e-commerce I noticed this kind of pattern: - you(your company/employer/etc) have a problem. - you solve said problem - profit - competit

From my few years in e-commerce I noticed this kind of pattern: - you(your company/employer/etc) have a problem. - you solve said problem - profit - competitors catch up and hit the same problem - 3rd party (or one of the 1st parties pivots) notices all of you have the same problem. implements solution to fix the generic version of the problem: a standard is born - hubs appear that make it easy for your competitors to eat into your market share because they now use the 3rd party solution and are more agile. - you can't integrate because your solution is not complying to the new "standard" - rewrite is needed (edit: I hate HN formatting)