The CockRoach DB example in the article is a perfect example of an unnecessary CRD. Acquiring certificates within an Kubernetes cluster is a common requirement for lots of applications and there are lots of solutions out there. Is it really necessary to spend time writing your own operator? Now you have a second helm chart and an operator to maintain. Now you have to explain to people which chart to use. You could get rid of the non-operator chart but now I have operators within the cluster acquiring certificates in 5 or 6 different ways. Do I have to configure the credentials for 6 operators so they can make Route53 DNS challenge records?

Edit: maybe we could shift left and ask the app developers to add certificate acquisition directly into the app source.