Why is everything so scalable?
6 days ago
- #scalability
- #startups
- #software-architecture
- Developers often over-engineer systems with complex architectures like microservices and distributed datastores, inspired by FAANG companies, without needing such scalability.
- The obsession with scalability leads startups to ignore more critical problems like product-market fit and financial sustainability.
- Scalability is expensive and complex, often unnecessary for early-stage startups, yet pursued for CV-building rather than practical needs.
- A monolith architecture with well-defined, statically-typed interfaces between modules is recommended for simplicity and maintainability.
- Benefits of a monolith include clean separation of concerns, easier API changes, rich type information, and faster performance.
- Downsides include difficulty in scaling individual components independently, though this is often manageable with vertical scaling.
- The article advises avoiding distributed architectures until absolutely necessary to save costs and complexity.