I keep a quiet list of tools I’m sad to depend on, in order of how badly I’d like to escape. Today’s top three:
- Image-resizing services I don’t own. They make sense for prototypes, but the link rot is real.
- CI providers that bill per minute. I’d rather pay flat-rate and have predictable invoices.
- Anything with a ‘free tier’ that requires a credit card.
This isn’t anti-vendor — most of these are excellent products. It’s anti-coupling.