Shipping lanes and the price of a MacBook

I spent the better part of my morning fighting with a Docker container that refused to build, only to look up and see the world is getting even more complicated. Most people look at news about blockades in the Strait of Hormuz and think about oil prices or navy ships. I look at it and wonder if the inverter batteries I ordered for my home office are ever going to make it past the port.

The supply chain is local

We like to think our work as developers is purely digital, but it’s anchored in very heavy, very physical stuff. If shipping routes get choked, the price of silicon goes up. When the price of silicon goes up, that laptop you’ve been eyeing at a shop in Computer Village suddenly costs an extra 300,000 Naira. It’s the "Sapa" cycle on a global scale.

I have a friend in Akure who runs a small dev shop. He’s been trying to scale his local server capacity because cloud costs are eating his margins alive. A blockade thousands of miles away means his hardware won't arrive, his costs stay high, and he has to tell his team to "no gree for anybody" while working on aging machines. It’s hard to build the future when the tools of the present are stuck on a boat.

Software can’t fix a broken port

I’ve seen a lot of "tech bros" talk about how blockchain or some new AI agent is going to revolutionize logistics. But no amount of Python scripts can move a container through a blocked strait. We’re seeing a real-world stress test of how fragile our "connected" world actually is.

For those of us building products in Nigeria, this is a reminder to optimize for what we have. If you’re writing code that requires massive compute power that we can’t afford to power or buy hardware for, you’re building on sand. I’m starting to think more about "low-fi" tech—apps that run on low-end Androids, services that don’t break when the bandwidth gets throttled, and systems that don’t rely on a constant influx of new, expensive gear.

The mental tax of the grind

The news about the former Virginia Lt. Gov. is a heavy reminder of something we don't talk about enough in the "hustle" culture: the mental toll of high-stakes environments. Whether you’re a politician or a founder trying to keep a startup afloat in Lagos or Owerri, the pressure can be suffocating.

I’ve had days where the power is out, the generator is knocking, and a client is screaming about a bug. It’s easy to feel like you’re failing at everything. We focus so much on the "tech stack" that we forget the "human stack."

Building for the real world

We need to be building more resilient businesses that aren't just one "global event" away from total collapse. Maybe that means sourcing more hardware locally or finding ways to extend the life of the tech we already have.

I'm going back to my Docker issue now. It's a small problem compared to a global blockade, but in this ecosystem, fixing what's right in front of you is sometimes the only way to keep moving. If the hardware is going to get more expensive, the least I can do is make sure the software I'm writing on it is actually worth the cost. Stay sharp out there.