I used to think this way until I started a company with employees
… I used to think this way until I started a company with employees. My opinion on the matter changed almost instantaneously. 1. One does not simply set up their own "X". Setting up X takes time and you will also have to manage it, which also takes time (and is harder to anticipate when you are fully responsible for managing it). 2. As someone making decisions on this type of stuff (eg a founder, executive, head of IT, etc), maintaining something like X is a poor use of your time and not something you want to have to even think about. So you'll be paying for it anyway even when it's "free" by having an employee maintain it or sacrificing your own time on it. 3. You may trust yourself to be able to maintain it properly, but if you delegate it to an employee, the math changes. Now you have to hire someone you can trust to do a good job maintaining it and who is willing to do that kind of work. And you need to consider things like "what if that person quits/retires/gets sick" and "what if they get hacked or go rogue" and "what do I do when they go on vacation"? 4. …
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