Yes sometimes. But how can you know beforehand? It’s clear in hindsight, for sure.

The most fundamental issue I have witnessed with these things is that people have a very hard time taking a balanced view.

For this specific problem, should we invest in a more robust solution which takes longer to build or should we just build a scrappy version and then scale later?

There is no right or wrong. It’s depends heavily on the context.

But, some people, especially developers I am afraid, only have one answer for every situation.