Do developers really want to give over their data?

There’s a rise in hosted database companies like Supabase, Neon, Turso, etc. When I look at those companies, here’s the thing I’ve been struggling with:

Do developers really want to give over their data?

Your making a trade-off by choosing one of these companies, and the tradeoff is this:

They will solve some boring infrastructure and security problems, and in return, they get all your data.

Not in the Cambridge-Analytica/Facebook style of “get all your data”. More like the S3 style; where the cost (in dollars 💲) or the cost (in time/effort 🕔) are high enough to dissuade you from trying to leave. There’s a strong lock-in effect.

If I work for SmallVCFundedStartUpCompany™️, then yes, sure, maybe. Maybe you don’t want to care about authentication, and hosting, and backups, and security, and secrets, and encryption, and replication.

Maybe you think you will run out of money and die before solving these problems, so paying someone else for them could be reasonable.

But if you are LargerSeriousBusinessCompany™️, are you really going to make the trade? I can’t help but think you’re going to want control over your data.

So does this mean that the Supa-Neon-Turso’s are destined for the small-scale part of the market, and SeriousBusinessCompanies™️ are going to look somewhere else? Like big-cloud-providers.

Or will the land-and-expand play work out, and the Startups-becoming-Scaleups will drag Supa-Neon-Turso’s up with them?

But again… surely you want control over your data? 🤔

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