A common perception of Apache Kafka is that it is not viable for serious consideration unless you have a large enough problem to warrant the non-trivial effort of introducing it into your organisation. Kafka is known primarily for its suitability within large enterprises and web-scale startups. However, with the rise of Confluent Cloud and other commodity KaaS offerings it seems inevitable that perceptions of the broader market will shift, demand will increase, and KaaS prices will be driven down towards the price floors of more common forms of cloud storage. I look forward to seeing a truly cross-cloud service emerge that optimises the use of low-cost tiered storage for infinite retention (a key requirement for Crux).