I've had this idea for a few days. Mulled it over. Thought about it. And I end up considering options.
There are a ton of vendors for automation services. Zapier, Make, and others. Fundamentally what they do can be done as a one-time service.
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Make the automation script. Feed it the API keys and details. Set it up on a server and run it.
That simple. What the automation vendors offer is the front-end website, which lets you put together that code yourself in a graphical user interface.
These carry a subscription charge - for every month you use their servers to run those scripts, you are charged for the privilege of running very basic (and simple) code on their servers.
AND they don't actually offer any support. If you want help with setting up an automation, whether it's because you don't understand something or because it broke (for whatever reason), you can't count on them to come in and help.
With automation vendors like that, you're entirely on your own to figure out what's broken, and how to fix it.
So what if you had your own server? What if you had the scripts that do all the things, yourself? Not hidden behind a paywall, not obscured by fancy pictures and colors. Just there. Working. And in the off-chance something breaks... you have a team on call, and it's reliably fixed within hours.
The funny thing is, you can. A basic VPS is about $20-30 a year. Hiring a coder who can create automations in an hour or two is about $100. Then you can easily find maintenance for it at $15-20/h, depending on the specifics.
Then instead of paying for a subscription... you can have the automations under your control. Your data. Your server. No dependence on a third party who may or may not be using your data for their own ends. No hang-ups or crashes that you can't respond to. No downtime because of vendor errors.
Best part: you can then sell that same automation to your clients, or add it as a bonus. It's already there. It's working! There is absolutely no reason you can't make it part of your product line.
There is a real market for this, and if it can be asked, this kind of offer can easily become the foundation for a managed automations business.
The idea being that you develop, install, and maintain automations for clients - not through a front-end, but by actually having a human look and write the code to meet whatever needs there are.
But the TL;DR is:
- Subscription services are a scam. The benefit of 'ease' and 'convenience' is entirely offset by platform limitations and lack of real support.
- Hosting your own software to do these things is much easier than it may seem.
- Having control over your IT and business processes is a sure way to ensure that you're not getting undercut by vendor issues.
- [Join the FSF.](https://my.fsf.org/join)
- Use [Emacs](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/).
