The article opens by noting microservices are ubiquitous in architecture discussions yet lack a clear definition. Questions about size, responsibilities, and code limits have no convincing answers because microservices aren't primarily a technical abstraction.

The real problem microservices solve is organizational, not technical. While a monolith can address slow deployments and painful builds, growing companies with dozens or hundreds of engineers need independent team ownership and release schedules. Microservices create boundaries mirroring organizational boundaries.

Every benefit carries costs. Autonomy replaces centralization, making dependency tracking and code usage analysis harder. Function calls become network requests; compiler errors become runtime failures. Distributed systems problems—latency, retries, partial failures—become application concerns.

Hidden communication costs extend beyond APIs. Teams must negotiate API changes, manage versioning, and coordinate database migrations. Decision-making becomes distributed. Microservices are excellent for organizational scaling but may be overkill for purely technical problems. They're organizational tools with technical consequences.