Managing the evolution of data

Data evolves over time, just as your organization does, and we’ll need to manage that appropriately in order to minimize the impact of that evolution on downstream users – particularly the most critical use cases. However, just like your organization, your core models and data products will also be stable over many years.

You can see that reflected in the public APIs, for those that have them, and how little they change over time. There’s little reason why our internal data products should change much more frequently than those if we build them with the same discipline and a product mindset.

Given that, it’s fine for there to be some friction when it comes to evolving our data contracts. In fact, this friction is desirable. By having some friction here, we’re signifying the importance of the data contract and the commitment we make to its maintenance and stability over the long term.

How much friction there...