(author here) Yes exactly! This is what I'm calling the Perlis-Thompson principle, although it still needs to be fully formed and explained. There are obvious objections to it (which I have some answers to).

Sketch of the argument here, with links: http://www.oilshell.org/blog/2021/07/blog-backlog-1.html#con...

Here's my comment which links the "Unix vs. Google" video (and I very much agree based on my first hand experience with Google's incoherent architecture, which executives started to pay attention to in various shake-ups.)

https://lobste.rs/s/euswuc/glue_dark_matter_software#c_sppff...

It links to my comment about the closely related "narrow waist" idea in networks and operating systems. That is a closely related concept regarding scaling your "codebase" and interoperability.

I have been looking up the history of this idea. I found a paper co-authored by Eric Brewer which credits it to Kleinrock:

http://bnrg.eecs.berkeley.edu/~randy/Papers/InternetServices... (was this ever published? I can't find a date or citations)

But I'm not done with all the research. I'm not sure if it's worth it to write all this, but I think it's interesting I will learn something by explaining it clearly and going through all the objections.

I'm definitely interested in the input of others. I have about 10 different resources where people are getting at this same scaling idea, but I can use more arguments / examples / viewpoints.