MACH Composable Conference in Chicago: Good Vibes Amidst Uncertainty
“Those pesky, unaligned – yet still opinionated and demanding – people. We foul it all up”
TL;DR: A Composable Snapshot of Global Sentiment
US is in deep-freeze, Europe is experiencing a mini-boom, and the community got together anyway.
What Technologists Are Seeing: Caution in the U.S., Confidence in the EU
Consensus seems to be in the US (almost) no big projects of any kind are going forward unless it is deemed critical to investors or the Board of Directors. On the other hand, there is something of a resurgence in Europe as the EU is beginning to learn how to rely less on markets in the United States — which means more investment there than was expected at the beginning of the year. And this is the opinion of essentially a room full of technologists.
From the Show Floor: Conversations With Easyjet and Experience Engineers
Had a great time recording a few video clips with Paul Curtis, CTO of Easyjet and Adam Bezemek, Global Director of Experience Engineering.
Adam spoke a lot about the common issue multi-brand holding companies have balancing the rationalization of technology investments vs allowing brand autonomy in these kinds of decisions — relative to a brand's specific user and growth goals.
I also gave each of them a quick question: What is MACH? Community, standards body, or marketing organization? The consensus answer was "community" of like-minded implementors.
Both Adam and Paul spoke about one of the real challenges with technology: those pesky, unaligned — yet still opinionated and demanding — people. We foul it all up.
Is MACH Controversial, and If So, Why?
What's interesting is that the founders and curators of MACH are some of the mildest mannered, likable people you will ever meet. Yet for those who have not spent time, there continues to be a lot of misunderstanding, fear, and sometimes even demonization.
Why is this?
The Criticism of MACH: Failures, Absolutism, and Straw Man Arguments
Five years in, there are known failures of projects which appear to follow MACH principles. As if all monoliths are successful! Hardly a criticism. How many crap stores could I point out from any vendor? Still, the light of day tends to take the shine off principles.
People tend to speak in absolutes (for short-hand, but also it's easier to make a point that way), and I have never seen a situation where the idea of the "straw man" argument seems to be the prevailing medium of discussion like it is with regards to enterprise architecture. Technologists have opinions, and strong ones. MACH is just a byproduct of that, not the originator of it. In short, we are still having the old ESR argument about the Cathedral and the Bazaar in 2025.
Trust and the Roots of MACH: Platform Bias or Healthy Skepticism?
Given the founding of MACH, there is always going to be at least some skepticism of the involvement of the original members, namely Commercetools. In particular if you are another platform. Yet, platforms still remain members.
The Shopify Question: Can MACH and Shopify Coexist?
Finally, there is the Shopify question. I have often posed this question to MACH members: For MACH to win, does Shopify have to lose? I think no, as if you look at the average Enterprise stack > $1B retailer, you find dozens and dozens of vendors, only one of which is the platform.
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