The hidden costs of using platforms and tools

Platforms and tools encompass a wide range of applications, including design and creativity tools, productivity and collaboration platforms, content management systems, hosting platforms, file storage services, marketing and analytics tools, and more.

You always hear how amazing something is and how it can solve all your problems. I'd prefer if companies were transparent about what their tool can and can't do, what the pitfalls are, and what's not quite ready.

Unfortunately, companies only ever talk about the positives when selling it to you, but it's not all sunshine and roses. This is a list of problems you may face and considerations to keep in mind.

External reliance

• Vendor lock-in makes future migrations difficult with proprietary formats, limited or no export options and the costly implications this may have, such as recreating your work from scratch.
• Ownership of content. The line is often blurred on what you truly own. Do you retain the rights to your content if you stop paying for a product or service?
• Information stored on a third-party platform increases the risk of a data breach.
• Outages and security breaches can leave you stranded.
• Any continued work is limited to being done on the tool or platform in the future.
• Getting the vendor to fix a bug can be difficult and take time.
• If something goes wrong during a critical period, say a launch, you may be reliant on the vendor to fix the problem.
• The vendor shifts priorities or customer base in the future, removing features or changing the product entirely.
• The vendor increases their prices. These can be quite large and sudden, having a drastic impact.
• The vendor introduces forced integrations or ads, ruining their core platform.
• The vendor receives bad publicity, thereby negatively influencing your business. For example, GoDaddy have had so many issues that there is a dedicated Wikipedia page - Controversies surrounding GoDaddy.
• The vendor discontinues their product or their business shuts down, leaving you stranded. For example, Google is well known for discontinuing its products, see Killed by Google.
• The vendor gets bought out and the new owners change its direction, or it’s the target of a killer acquisition. Skype is a great example of this. As Microsoft took over, it became far worse and was then made redundant so Microsoft Teams could replace it. Unsurprisingly, Skype has now been discontinued.

Training and frustration

• Employee dissatisfaction and time spent with having to learn and use yet another tool.
• Providing training along with hiring costs and challenges finding people with knowledge and experience using a specific tool.
• Frustration with the inevitable issues that come with trying to use a tool with limitations created due to abstraction.
• Becoming reliant on a specific tool instead of utilising a skillset. Narrowing their opportunities means employees may struggle to find a job in the future. Some examples are Webflow designer instead of Web designer or WordPress developer instead of Web developer. Tools are fickle; a skillset is lasting.

Limitations and quality

• Limitations on what is possible mean having to say no to a client or creating bad practice workarounds that take time or cause further issues.
• If the vendor outputs code, the quality, in my experience, is abysmal.
• Some platforms and tools don’t function offline. You might not be able to continue your work if you have a poor or spotty connection, for example, if you are on a train.
• Poor performance, server outages, vulnerabilities or bugs can disrupt work and deadlines.
• Abstraction creates bloat as platforms often try to solve multiple problems with a single solution, because it makes them more money at the detriment of quality.

Final thoughts

Platforms, tools and software often solve your problems and do exactly what you want. However, you should consider the potential issues of using them, especially as some of these issues only become obvious once you’re far down the line, when it’s harder to switch.

Hopefully, this list of considerations will be useful when choosing to use a new platform or tool and cut through some of the often fictional, misleading marketing exaggerations.