Not sure I agree with this perspective. Many of these companies are started by engineers or product managers who have seen the boring solutions not work for them. In some cases they either see it not work many times or see a future where other organizations get to that point and need a better solution. In digging into what these companies do it becomes clear that they aren't doing it just to push new tech, but maybe I'm the one who hasn't seen enough.
You mention k8s and related stuff isn't always the answer. Seems you think it's somewhat valuable? I'd like to hear what sort of tech you think is creating a bubble by being so useless! Certainly k8s can't be it, because for large companies the automation abilities of such a system are quite clear. Does it intro new problems, of course, and if they aren't well solved yet you'll have to think hard about the benefits of adopting The New Way, but to call this a bubble is hard to accept.
Many solutions are useful in a context, and were built with that in mind. My point is that much of the adoption of them is context-free. Eg. NoSQL solutions were largely about dealing with scalability challenges with SQL databases that most people didn’t have. Also the scalability has nothing to do with SQL per se, that was just marketing.
Kubernetes is a great piece of technology but it’s also hyped beyond the stratosphere. My point wasn’t Kubernetes about thoughtful adoption of Kubernetes in context, it was about buzzword bingo being played by those that want to use a set of newer technologies as weapons for their political battles or career aspirations. This requires active leadership to resist.
"bubble" has a few meanings, or interpretations, and one of them is definitely, in this context, "a technology becomes so popular it gets used for things it probably shouldn't have been used for".
I think the main reason why it gets used for things it shouldn't be used for is that engineers get all enthusiastic about using it, and look for a job that it can be used for. This is especially true when the tech in question is becoming a de-facto requirement in the industry and everyone needs to know how to use it to succeed at their next interview.
Hence the need for this presentation, which wouldn't be needed (or popular) if there weren't so many damn bubbles.
"Many of these companies are started by engineers or product managers who have seen the boring solutions not work for them."
Most of the time (not all, but almost all of the time), if a "boring solution" doesn't work for you, the problem is you, not the solution. There's a reason it is boring.
>if a "boring solution" doesn't work for you, the problem is you, not the solution
Were the people who hated their pagers and wanted cell phones idiots? All the people who were writing GUIs in C and debugging memory leaks...was the problem that they were shitty programmers, or is there something to be gained by spending more time on the business logic and less time on memory management?
It's healthy to see the shortcomings of current solutions, and to wonder if there is a better way. It's not healthy to chase shiny objects simply because they are shiny, or to massively complicate your tech stack because it helps marginally with a short-term problem.
> Were the people who hated their pagers and wanted cell phones idiots?
Tangential comment here. No they are not idiots, but I can tell you from experience (my team and I build and manage a wide area paging network supporting over 40000+ emergency services first responders over an area of 230,000 km²+) that there are still advantages to paging protocols over 3G/4G in certain circumstances.
Coverage is one of them. Sometimes the best tool for a particular job is the older one.
You mention k8s and related stuff isn't always the answer. Seems you think it's somewhat valuable? I'd like to hear what sort of tech you think is creating a bubble by being so useless! Certainly k8s can't be it, because for large companies the automation abilities of such a system are quite clear. Does it intro new problems, of course, and if they aren't well solved yet you'll have to think hard about the benefits of adopting The New Way, but to call this a bubble is hard to accept.