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Comment by talmand | Hacker News Reader

Essential? No one innovates on their own anymore? They have to rely on third-parties to be able to innovate?

If you can build a good, working service without using anything from a third party then you can build the same service quicker, better, and cheaper using third parties and concentrating on just the innovative part. There is no sensible business reason to build everything yourself.

I don't see where you're showing that it is "essential" to the part that is being innovated to use these third-party services. It's the essential part I'm having a problem with.

I'm suggesting it's essential to use third party services to do the things that aren't innovative, so you have the time, runway, and focus to do the innovative things.

For example, no SaaS startup should be writing their own payment system unless they're a fintech startup doing payments. If you're wasting time building things that you buy in for much lower cost then you will fail.

I'm not saying not to use third parties, I'm disagreeing with using the term essential in that context. It is too encompassing and final of a statement. To me it implies that any innovation in the space cannot possibly happen without the usage of third-party services, which is simply not true.

Generally you want to focus your "innovation" on your core competencies. For other things, you kinda want to use 3rd party things

I agree. But "essential"? As in the innovation can't happen unless you use these essential services?

I believe s73v3r is saying that using third party services allows you to dedicate more time to innovation, rather than spending your time coding services that already exist and are probably better than you can write yourself anyway.

That's what I agree to, but I still balk at the term essential in terms of innovation. It is not essential. Helpful, yes. Essential, no.

It absolutely can. But now you're dividing your time between what you're trying to innovate in, and doing boilerplate stuff that has already been solved and set up for you. There are only so many hours in the day.

I have not disagreed with that. Is it wrong of me to think that the word "essential" is far too limiting for the context of the statement? You seem to agree with the point I'm trying to make here.

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