Microservices: The chain of calls and the radar of freedom

Microservices architectures can be used to face a large spectrum of non-functional requirements and have the unique ability to allow for a plethora of solutions enabling developers to reach the trade-off between consistency and availability that better suits their needs. This vast solution space, however, is often mistaken for an unprecedented design freedom (mostly by IT social media) that is used as a selling point for this architectural style. This position paper argues that the array of design choices allowed by microservices should not be intended as freedom that is there for the developers to take because of their personal preferences, rather as an opportunity to compose the right mix able to face the specific needs of the application under development.