Remember when you first subscribed to Netflix? It was a different world back then...
You had a single subscription. It was easy to keep up with. It probably saved you a bunch of money if you cut the cable cord at the same time.
Fast forward only a few years, and you probably have subscriptions for streaming services that you've forgotten you had. (Go check your bank records now... I bet I just helped you save some money! 🙃)
I believe we'd find the same aura emanating from the average company's tooling purchases. There are probably a ton of tools invoicing you each month that you're not using.
Regaining Control
There's the obvious advice: stop the bleeding. Start cancelling subscriptions for tools that haven't been used lately. Add processes and approvals for purchases.
It's not going to help, though. We're just treating the symptom, we haven't addressed the underlying motivation for tool sprawl.
Why This Happens
We've talked about this a little bit previously here on The Adventures of Blink, but in the context of "Culture Change". I believe that this pile-up of tooling is the result of that Cultural Compartmentalization Paradox.
Management sees a cultural (DevEx) problem, and thinks that they can shortcut the solution by buying a tool. Think about it: Each one of those invoices is a historical document, providing evidence that someone passionately worked to convince leadership to buy in.
The problem is that they bought a technical solution to solve an interpersonal problem... and now it's in the graveyard, used by a tiny percentage of teams (if at all), getting paid out while not delivering the value we thought they would.
The Myth That More Is Better
This seems like a no-brainer, but organizations fall for it constantly.
We need an AI Feature. Friend, it's probably going to hurt when I say this, but I mean it with love: You likely don't. This is a hype cycle, and right now the sales and marketing pressures have never been higher. Consider factors like your team's capacity and look around for higher-ROI work first.
Adding this tool will improve our environment. It might... but is it worth the added complexity?
We just need a bigger Roadmap / Backlog. Organizations love to fall into this trap. Annual budgeting practices (implemented that way because Accounting prefers it) lead us to believe we need to plan much farther into the future than we actually can.
The Courage to Delete
In a similar vein, we thought we'd fully dispelled the myth that "Lines of Code Produced" was some sort of valid productivity metric, but the Slop Cannon approach to development work has resurrected it as some kind of badge of honor.
It's not just about lines of code, either: Architects produce a "Reference Architecture" to solve a problem, and then apply it... often in cases where it's overkill. Every single utility app in your company doesn't need a full observability implementation within it, but I bet there are "official designs" in your org that recommend it!
That's a problem that I'd sum up like this:
Simplicity is a Prerequisite for Security
When something is overengineered, it increases the attack surface. Now you have extra work to secure and protect, and no real additional value gained by doing so. (Side Quest: Think about the sheer volume of code that AI is producing every time you fire that slop cannon. From your security team's perspective, that's a massive amount of attack surface added!)
The Health Inspector's Toll
Think of your architecture like a professional kitchen. If the counters are cluttered with gadgets you don't use and the pantry is overflowing with expired "innovative" ingredients, the kitchen is gross. When the Health Inspector (or in our world, the Auditor) shows up, they aren’t just "being annoying", they are reacting to the chaos you've allowed to fester.
You cannot secure what you do not understand, and you cannot understand a system that is buried under the weight of a thousand "shortcuts."
Wrapping up with a little perspective
I think it's worth noting that regaining control is an act of bravery. It takes zero courage to say "yes" to a new tool that promises to fix your culture, because everybody already wants to be on board with the next big thing... But it takes immense courage to stand up in a stakeholder meeting and suggest that you replace a microservice with a simple function.
It takes similar courage to admit that the "innovative" feature you championed six months ago is actually just technical slop that’s making your team slower and your surface area wider.
Your Challenge Today: Go look at your "menu."
Find one tool, one "standard" architectural requirement, or one abandoned service that is currently serving as nothing more than a historical monument to a cultural shortcut.
Delete it. Not because you're trying to save $50 a month, but because you're reclaiming the mental overhead required to actually build something that matters.
Simplicity is the foundation of Progress.
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