Not going headless is the mistake
Own the data model your business runs on, or rent somebody else’s definition of a customer.
I read a run of takes about how going headless was a mistake — overengineering, complexity nobody asked for, just use the platform and get on with your life. I will say the opposite as plainly as I can.
If you do not own the model, you do not get to build anything interesting on top of it. You get to file a feature request.
WHAT I AM NOT SAYING
Not every company should rebuild a storefront
No, every company should not rebuild a storefront because somebody discovered React. That is a real failure mode and it deserves the mockery it gets. But that is not the argument.
THE ARGUMENT
Downstream of controlling our own stack
The argument is whether you own the data model your business runs on, or whether you rent somebody else’s definition of what a customer is. If we had not gone headless, none of what BLU does would exist — we would be married to somebody else’s data model, somebody else’s definitions, somebody else’s roadmap. Every interesting thing about it is downstream of controlling our own stack.
THE COST SIDE MOVED
Hard was always a cost-benefit argument
Headless is not easy, and anyone who tells you it is has not done much of it. But "hard" was always a cost-benefit argument, and the cost side just fell through the floor while everybody was busy repeating the old take.