Build your systems in ways that make it possible to grab a go-bag and move on. Since Airtable formulas and scripts are locked into the platform, the go-bag will probably have only your data. Ergo - best to think carefully about building deep dependencies on a specific architecture. Easier said than done.
Certainly ensuring your data can be preserved and exported is essential. I only agree to a certain extent with a hesitancy to adopt an architecture though. Absolutely, thought should be put into the initial choice, to ensure you are selecting an application that meets your needs better than the alternatives. But if you always keep every application you use at the end of a 6-foot pole, to prevent “building deep dependencies”, you will never get out of the application the thing you adopted it for in the first place – solutions to your architecture needs.
You have to build dependencies on something. You do the best you can to make a good choice based on research. Once you make your choice though, it makes every bit of sense to squeeze every bit of juice out of the application (and adjacent applications) as possible to make it work for you.
As you say, @Bill.French, limiting your dependency is easier said than done. You can’t sit around waiting for the perfect piece of software to come along – you’ll die, and your business along with you, before you get that software. You’re going to have to commit to something, and it’s going to hurt if you have to switch down the road. This is just a reality we have to live with. But we should still count it a blessing that the same environment that brings us this pain is the environment that also brings us the joy and drive of innovation that makes all of these incredible options we have a reality.
@Scott_Gould, I’d imagine that Airtable is probably still in the top 5 options available to you for meeting your business needs, regardless of cost, and when factoring in cost, is easily in the top 3. That being the case, I’d agree with @ScottWorld’s general advice to keep on at it, and make data backups. But perhaps to add just a little to that, maybe also document your processes and workflows outside of Airtable as well, and only in general terms of what those workflows accomplish, not how they accomplish it with your specific tools right now. That way, should you have to make a switch in the future, you are able to remember in what ways you had your data connected to processes, and are able to rebuild those workflows in another architecture (don’t know about you, but I’d forget all the workflows I had in place).
