How easy would it be to replace Datadog with something else for monitoring applications?
Wrong question! How easy is it to move customers from Datadog to “something else.” People who keep asking that question don’t understand the workings of complex systems, of path dependence, and the economic law of increasing returns. A lot of investors are still thinking in terms of commodities and that frame if reference does not apply to most high tech investing.
Not being techno literate I have some difficulty understanding your point. For example, I understand DDOG as a “supervisory” or monitoring service that alerts organizations to problems in their data systems operations which for most entails activity of a variety of service functions on differing platforms some interactive some not. Based on what I’ve read on this board and elsewhere other services attempt to address these issues but do not provide a result or utility to match that of DDOG. Therefore the answer to the question should be straightforward .It would not be easy to replace DDOG because nothing else does the same job. (Or perhaps some do but its not a good idea to fix what isn’t broken.)
How easy would it be to replace Google with another search engine? Why hasn’t it happened?
Well it would be simple to replace Google with another search engine, but in fact over at least the past 20 years nearly all other search engines have been supplanted by Google. People seem to like it better for a variety of well known reasons. My experience of Google of late has been that its rather a nuisance to use because it gives you sponsored or otherwise influenced results which because they are manipulated (in my opinion) tends to be off the mark. In this regard I find Wikipedia more useful… but I digress.
The bottom line is that the product which gives the best results is very difficult to replace because it is the best.
AWS CloudWatch is very basic and not that good. AWS has hundreds of services and their specialty is not logging. DataDog is a company which concentrates specifically on this so it is a far superior product.
There was an section in the DataDog S-1 that was eye opening. They have a financial customer who’s a customer that has 1200 DataDog user licenses but the company only has 800 engineers.
Management also uses DataDog. They can monitor the health of systems. For example, let’s say there are 20 critical systems in the company. With DataDog they can create a dashboard to monitor all of them, and if some are under-performing or one is in crisis they can divert resources to help there.
Not being techno literate I have some difficulty understanding your point.
…
The bottom line is that the product which gives the best results is very difficult to replace because it is the best.
That is a very simplistic world view and it is wrong! The subject is too complex to discuss here which is why I added the PS which I will repeat here:
PS: I realize that my reply is rather sharp but it is in no way personal. Apologies in advance if it was taken as such. I believe this is an important lesson for tech investors and I urge you all to bone up on complexity. I highly recommend Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos by M. Mitchell Waldrop as a great starting point. It’s a book for the layman and very entertaining.
: I realize that my reply is rather sharp but it is in no way personal. Apologies in advance if it was taken as such. I believe this is an important lesson for tech investors and I urge you all to bone up on complexity. I highly recommend Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos by M. Mitchell Waldrop as a great starting point. It’s a book for the layman and very entertaining.
First let me say that I appreciate your forthright approach and further to thank you for your reply to my post.
I would like to pursue the matter a bit further .Granted , simply saying that the best product wins doesn’t really advance the discussion so let me elaborate a bit.
Complexity as I have encountered it stems from the nonlinearity that is inherent in all multidimensional physical systems and large scale systems in general… The relevant equations exhibit a variety of higher order instability which accounts for the random and sometomes chaotic nature of events around us. e.g. weather patterns.
Human and systems interactions in the real world of business and investing also have a large amount of inherent instability and unpredictability which is one of the reasons investing and or building a successful technology enterprise is so fraught.
The books that you recommend give a birds eye view of some of these issues, or they address problem associated with building a technologically innovative enterprise or choosing an investment… They do not delve into the heart of the inherent complexity of the systems that are being created.
Now insofar as DDOG is concerned they have, taken a rather complex set of business management activities involving many data sets and designed an approach which integrates and or simplifies their accessibility and use.
Once having installed and made use of this system, or once having discovered it capabilities a rational business decision is to adopt the system and keep it going. Why would a business adopt an inferior approach,. Of course some would argue that system A or B is more suited to their needs and so choose that over DDOG.But the growth in the number of corporate users reflects a collective decision that it is the best for its purpose.
It would be very difficult then for a competitor to replace DDOG. Wouldn’t you say?
It would be very difficult then for a competitor to replace DDOG. Wouldn’t you say?
I’m afraid we have been talking past each other. Of course “it would be very difficult for a competitor to replace Datadog.” But not necessarily because Datadog is the best but simply because Datadog is the leader of the pack. What I was trying to point out is that replacing the leader is very difficult and people who think a better product or deep pockets can easily turn the trick are wrong.
The various books I listed provide the details. The Gorilla Game brings up switching costs – economics. Positioning brings up mental states – marketing. The popular saying “you can’t get fired for buying IBM” brings up job security. People who think a better product or deep pockets can easily turn the trick are missing these and other important factors inherent in complex systems.
With commodities quality and price play vital roles and that is what classical economics of diminishing returns deals with. We are investing in a new breed of products, complex products and services that are governed by the economic law of increasing returns. Here the Science of Complexity and Increasing Returns rule.
Yes, I agree. Whereas I adopted a purely technical perspective you were emphasizing the inherent complexity of business decision making under uncertainty made more difficult by prejudices and entrenched practices.