A key factor that needs to be considered in adopting these tools is how well you can manage your risk exposure to abuse.<p>If you are paying fees based on &quot;usage&quot;, what prevents a bad actor (competitor, hacker, a bug in your own code) from causing you to rack up huge fees?<p>And if these features are providing critical functionality for your own app or service, it might not be feasible for you to simply &quot;turn it off&quot;.<p>Another key question is whether or not the third-party you are relying on is an actual reliable business partner. Will they get acquired and&#x2F;or go out of business unexpectedly (a la Parse)? Will they get hacked and create a risk exposure for you that way (PII, PCI, etc.)? What kind of internal controls do they have?<p>And lastly... how do they integrate with devops? A lot of these tools have web-based administrative consoles that require you to log in and make changes. That sort of thing flies in the face of using tools like chef&#x2F;puppet&#x2F;salt&#x2F;ansible--instead you&#x27;ve got to write detailed release notes that typically a product manager will execute, not an operations person.<p>I agree that this is a new reality for a lot of companies&#x2F;developers. But it comes with a lot of risks and issues.