Comment by spectramax | Hacker News Reader

Comment by spectramax | Hacker News Reader

I found Shopify app store excessively expensive and risky. Most plugins are subscription based with poor support, no guarantee of future updates and just reeks of poor quality. I am not a store owner so I can't comment on how useful some of these plugins are but the whole idea of business critical services (such as a store front) needs rock solid foundation and support, without it I would get extremely nervous.

Imagine if I have 8 plugins that I pay anywhere from $10-30 a month, per plugin. That's 8 things that can break when Shopify changes some API related things and now I have 8 different parties that I need to seek support from to get my store up and running. God forbid if the developer ceases to exist and bailed out of Shopify ecosystem. I am getting nervous just thinking about this whole "app store" model for business critical infrastructure.

May be I am not well informed in this space, but there are also services that help glue various other services such as IFTTT, and a few others that combine GSuite, Asana, Dropbox, Slack, etc... I can't remember them but I wonder what kind of nightmares I would have to rely on fragmented infrastructure that consists of chained API calls managed by independent companies. Mind you, the middle broker of API also wants the slice of the business so they're going to either charge $/month or worse - ads. Then there is the whole privacy/security aspect. Holycrap what a mess!

Sounds like Heroku's business model and that works fine for a certain type of business/consumer. Of course you could spin up your own VPS or code your own Rails ecommerce app. But that's not always economical - up to a certain scale.

API changes breaking sites is another matter entirely than their subscription plugin model which could be solved while maintaining that structure.

This change by Spotify seems to be related to Mailchimp not providing a certain standard of service that they demand from other plugin-services on their platform. I could see that being a costly choice for any customer who has to now migrate to other services, but the intentions were largely good and pro-customer.

Hopefully there was some sort of data migration process in place and some upfront warnings before your email marketing system gets cut-off.

I think the problem I am describing goes deeper than just the API calls.

It is about support and accountability. As a business owner, I want as few parties responsible for my infrastructure as possible with healthy portability possibilities (to avoid lock-in).

With Shopify app store, the whole idea is insane to me - I have to now deal with Shopify + plugin developers individually to fix issues. Things break all the time, just go to Shopify forums for support. And then, there is the risk of a developer leaving Shopify ecosystem with a dangling plugin never to be maintained.

Sure but supporting your own infrastructure is exactly why people choose to use a service like this.

From my experience running your own services is far more fragile and subject to maintenance-overhead due to API changes than a service like Shopify or Heroku.

The main drawback is a lack of flexibility and customization - not so much the lack of stability in service.

I agree and I can see why supporting your own service would probably be more of a headache.

What about stores such as Squarespace? They don't have a market place of apps and everything they do is in their control. Ofcourse, now there is a risk of lock-in and unable to extend/scale your store if needed.

> That's 8 things that can break when Shopify changes some API related things and now I have 8 different parties that I need to seek support from to get my store up and running.

Relatively speaking, that's a great position to be in compared to running a site with 30+ WordPress plugins on top of a sophisticated theme. Or some Node.js site >2k dependencies.

8 things that can break whose code you have no control over and cannot see.

If your newsletter pop up app breaks that’s no big deal but your inventory sync isn’t in the same boat.

With node packages you can lock to a version and upgrade gradually. With Wordpress you can do the same.

Generally though I’ve found Shopify keeps you updated when it comes to breaking API changes.

There’s also the issue of admin user experience. Those Shopify apps offer various links and can often take you out of the Shopify admin entirely. There are some great apps on there (Accenture custom fields for example) but they’re also limited by the Shopify API. You’re no longer trusting your images to be stored in Shopify but also in the third party apps service.

Yes you an argue there’s reviews and due diligence but this is the internet - I don’t immediately trust user reviews. Your best bet is to sign up for a trial (if they offer it and don’t ask for your CC upfront) and then test the app out. You may have just spent a day on one app and there may be a dozen or more on the App Store.

It is a mess and if you’re anything but an SME, I don’t recommend the App Store or Shopify. It may be your quickest way to an MVP but don’t consider it a long term strategy

Interestingly, this is why Shopify has really strict guidelines for their Theme Store: (https://themes.shopify.com/services/themes/guidelines)

"Being a Theme Partner is a full-time job."

"Shopify themes need constant care and attention. We expect Theme Partners who work with us to be engaged, passionate about their theme(s), and apply any theme updates we request in a timely manner."

"Our current Theme Partners are a tight-knit group of people."

The privacy policy is also pretty shit for a lot of the plugins on Shopify. Many will ask for indiscriminate access to customer information, product information, etc.

> Most plugins are subscription based with poor support, no guarantee of future updates and just reeks of poor quality

This is why there are reviews, and as a merchant (or any other business) seeking a solution, you should be doing your due diligence when it comes to using apps on the app store. This is no different than other app stores like the Apple / Android app stores where there are tons of apps that are subpar and it isn't difficult to avoid them.

As with any third party plugin, app, or service, there's no guarantee that they'll stay around. Heck, we had an app that had an integration with Instagram's API, and they pulled the rug from under everyone by hard-deprecating their API months before the scheduled date. Don't get me started on the NPM ecosystem either.

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