Published: January 8, 2026 | 10 min read
Every platform you depend on is decaying. APIs deprecate. Pricing changes. Features disappear. The vendor gets acquired and your integration becomes a migration project. This isn't pessimism. It's physics. And if your skills are tied to specific platforms, they're rotting too.
Here's how it works. A platform launches. It's hungry. APIs are generous, pricing is aggressive, documentation is sharp. They need users, integrations, ecosystem.
You build on it. Your workflow depends on it. Your team learns it. You're invested.
Then the platform matures. Growth slows. Investors want returns. The generous API gets rate-limited. The free tier shrinks. The pricing "simplifies" (gets more expensive). Features you depend on become "legacy" and eventually deprecated.
This isn't betrayal. It's business.
Platforms aren't charities. They're companies optimizing for survival, then profit, then exit. Your integration isn't their asset—it's their liability. Every API call you make costs them money. Every edge case you depend on is complexity they'd rather deprecate.
Think about the platforms that shaped how people work:
Every single one of these seemed permanent when people built on them. They weren't.
The question isn't whether your platform will rot. It's when.
There's a difference between knowing a platform and knowing patterns.
Platform skills:
These skills have an expiration date. When the platform changes (or dies), so does your expertise.
Pattern skills:
Pattern skills transfer. When Zapier changes pricing, you understand how to build the same workflow in n8n, Make, or custom code. When Salesforce adds complexity, you understand the underlying CRM patterns well enough to evaluate alternatives.
Platforms are implementations. Patterns are knowledge.
No-code tools are platforms that hide this reality behind friendly interfaces.
"Build without code!" means "Build without understanding." You're assembling someone else's abstractions without knowing what's underneath. When those abstractions change, you're helpless.
We're not anti-no-code. Some tools solve real problems. But understand the tradeoff:
Every no-code automation you build is a bet that the platform will exist, unchanged, for as long as you need it. That bet has never paid off long-term.
You can't avoid platforms entirely. Modern software is platforms all the way down. But you can build defensively.
Don't scatter platform-specific code throughout your system. Wrap each integration in your own interface. When the platform changes, you update one place, not everywhere.
Your code should call sendEmail(), not sendgrid.send(). When SendGrid
raises prices, you swap the implementation. Your business logic doesn't change.
Platforms love holding your data hostage. Export regularly. Store canonical copies in systems you control. Never let a platform be the only place your critical data lives.
If the platform died tomorrow, could you recover? If not, you're one acquisition away from disaster.
When you learn a new platform, ask: "What pattern is this implementing?"
Zapier implements event-driven workflows. HubSpot implements CRM patterns. Notion implements relational data with flexible schemas. Understanding the pattern means you can evaluate alternatives, build custom solutions, or migrate when necessary.
Every platform integration should have an estimated migration cost. "What would it take to leave?" If the answer is "impossible" or "rebuild everything," you've created a single point of failure.
The platform knows this. That's why their pricing gets worse over time. They're counting on your switching costs exceeding their price increases.
We teach patterns, not platforms.
Yes, our labs use specific tools—Google Apps Script, Sheets, specific APIs. But the focus is always on the transferable pattern:
When the tools change—and they will—you understand enough to adapt. That's the difference between being a platform operator and being an engineer.
If your entire skillset is "I know how to use [Platform X]," your career has an expiration date.
Not because you're bad at your job. Because the platform doesn't owe you stability. It owes its investors returns. When those interests diverge from your interests, you lose.
The builders who survive platform rot are the ones who learned why things work, not just how to click the right buttons. They're the ones who can read documentation for a new tool and recognize the patterns. They're the ones who build their own systems when the platforms fail them.
Platforms rot. Patterns persist. Choose what you learn accordingly.
"Every platform is a bet against time. Patterns are how you hedge."