🤯 Third-party service providers
We often choose to use third-party service providers to run certain aspects of our software:
- Email: ImprovMX, Postmark, SendInBlue etc
- SMS: Twilio, MessageBird etc
- Logging: LogFlare, LogZ, Elastic etc
- Servers: Vercel, Heroku etc
- Image Processing: Cloudinary, imgix etc
- Support: Intercom, HelpScout etc
- ...and plenty more
It makes sense. These services give us velocity and time to focus on our core product. We don't have to reinvent the wheel over and over again.
One thing that keeps me up at night is the sheer amount of these services we rely on, and I ponder what would happen if one were to shut down or decide to cancel your account, for any reason.
We often integrate these services deep into our business logic and our data. We store references to third-party ID's, we listen to webhooks for status updates. We expect these platforms to always work, sometimes for our most critical user flows. If they stop working, a part of our product stops working.
Over the years i've built many products, and i'm lucky to have never faced any major issues, yet. Platforms come and go but for the most part it's a simple transition.
But it has me thinking... How many of you have had to deal with the nightmare-version of this on a live product? Were you lucky to get a heads up or did it happen over night? How did you tackle it?
Additionally, do you use any tactics to lower the chance of these things happening?
