Billy Thompson
Unwind: Breaking the Psychology of Cloud Vendor Lock-in
#1about 3 minutes
Using a farmer's market analogy for cloud vendor choice
An analogy of choosing produce at a farmer's market illustrates the irrational behavior of sticking to a single, expensive cloud provider.
#2about 7 minutes
Why the tech industry ignores alternative cloud providers
Despite high costs like egress fees, the industry often defaults to major hyperscalers due to a narrow perception of what constitutes "the cloud".
#3about 4 minutes
Adopting a descriptive mindset over a prescriptive one
Shifting from a prescriptive mindset of following vendor guides to a descriptive one of creating your own solutions is key to regaining agency.
#4about 3 minutes
How your brain's filtering system limits cloud choices
The brain's Reticular Activating System (RAS) acts like a filter, reinforcing familiarity with major cloud providers and making alternatives invisible.
#5about 3 minutes
An exercise to objectively re-evaluate your architecture
A mental exercise of stripping an application down to its bare essentials helps in making objective, provider-agnostic tooling choices.
#6about 3 minutes
Case study of Macrometa's portable cloud architecture
Macrometa's success with a multi-cloud, portable architecture demonstrates the power of building on open source and core infrastructure primitives.
#7about 3 minutes
Shifting power dynamics by mastering the basics
Mastering fundamental cloud infrastructure primitives allows you to dictate terms to providers, shifting the power dynamic in your favor.
#8about 1 minute
A call to action to rethink the cloud
The final message encourages developers to become creators, free themselves from vendor lock-in, and let their innovation flourish.
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Matching moments
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Rapid-fire thoughts on the future of work
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