This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Samuel Mutemi
The Grand Illusion of "Future-Proof" Code
Ah, the siren song of scalability. It whispers sweet nothings into our ears: "Build it right the first time," "You’ll thank yourself later," "What if you get 10 million users tomorrow?" And before you know it, you’ve spent three months architecting a dazzling microservices masterpiece, only to realize your "scalable" app has exactly one user: you, refreshing the page in incognito mode.
This was me. I was that developer. Convinced that my side project needed a Kubernetes cluster, a distributed notification system, and a payment service that could handle Stripe-level traffic, despite the fact that my MVP was still just a glorified to-do list.
The Hard Truth: Scale Doesn’t Matter If Nobody Cares
Here’s the uncomfortable reality: You cannot optimize for problems you don’t have yet.
- Are you drowning in user traffic? → No? Then why are you building a CDN?
- Do you have 10,000 concurrent payment requests? → No? Then why are you overengineering Stripe?
- Are your notifications crashing under load? → No? Then why did you build a pub-sub system when Novu’s free tier exists?
I had to face the music: I wasn’t building for scale, I was procrasti-scaling. Avoiding the real work (making something people actually wanted) by obsessing over infrastructure that might matter someday.
The Pivot: From Over-Engineered to "Good Enough"
So I did the unthinkable: I deleted months of work and replaced it with:
- Supabase (Auth + DB) → Free tier. Works. Done.
- Novu (Notifications) → Free tier. Works. Done.
- Stripe (Payments) → Basic integration. Works. Done.
Suddenly, I was making real progress - not on infrastructure, but on the actual product. And guess what? If (big if) my app ever outgrows these tools, I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.
The Lesson: Build Stupid First
Your first version should be embarrassingly simple. Not because you’re lazy, but because:
- You don’t yet know what needs scaling. (Most things won’t.)
- Premature optimization is the root of all evil. (Or at least wasted time.)
- Your biggest risk isn’t scale, it’s building something nobody wants.
So next time you catch yourself designing a Kafka pipeline for your cat blog, ask:
"Is this solving a real problem, or just my fear of hypothetical ones?"
Because in the end, a working app with limits beats an unfinished "scalable" one every time.
Now go build something stupid. You can always make it smart later. 🚀
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Samuel Mutemi
Samuel Mutemi | Sciencx (2025-08-15T21:28:09+00:00) Microservices or Micro-progress? The Perils of Pre-Scaling Too Soon. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2025/08/15/microservices-or-micro-progress-the-perils-of-pre-scaling-too-soon/
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