SaaS: Software as a Subordination
A recent incident of API calls being throttled by a vendor, but not if we purchase their new upsell “product”, illustrates the problem. Once you give up managing servers, you risk any interaction with those servers now being commoditized by the vendor, and sold back to you at a premium.
Not all purveyors of “Software as a Service” (SaaS) price gouge, but most do. That’s business, right? Dispense the least you can to the customer and harvest the maximum profit. Nobody cares if good business is bad ethics. Business and Ethics aren’t apples and oranges, they are apples and garden hoses, or apples and airplanes. Nobody even bothers anymore. Business is just a wrestling match, may the best man win, through strength or guile.
Tech is one of the most corrupt industries because the tricks are all cutting edge and customers take time to catch on to each new con. Software as a Service, which we’ll call Software as a Subordination from here on, is an example of such a con. The customer is relieved of the cost of managing a server either on premises or in the cloud, but the vendor subordinates the customer in the process by assuming administrative privileges. This subordination cannot be understated. Initially, as a customer, you feel you’ve shifted cost structures in an unqualified Win for your organization. But in fact, wrestler, you’ve just been pinned.
This seller now has you in a hammerlock, and each year that goes by, they will start to twist. License fees go up, your vendor lock-in grows hard like old cement as your developers create more and more non-portable customizations in the proprietary system. You spent so much money, however, that even as the situation worsens, admitting it would be the final defeat.
But defeat is not necessarily your fate. Recognize the con and avoid it, at least going forward. Limit the damage incurred by any of your current Software as a Subordination relationships by refusing upsell products, demanding good support on your existing contract, and customizing wisely. More on that last part later.
A somewhat less fevered take on the topic appeared recently in a piece by Paula Rooney on cio.com.
Thanks for listening… here, down by the docks.