[shift8]

SoA is nothing new and there are definitely times to use it much like there are times to use MVC and times not. However, it's a "buzz" right now because of the nature of many of the apps we have out there right now. Big data is also a buzz and fits well with SoA / microservices. Docker fits in here as well. The entire way the hosting landscape is shifting nurtures an SoA and the notion of running apps as VMs sans operating system is yet another support for SoA.

No, it's not appropriate for your blog. But it IS appropriate for many applications out there and it's an incredibly beneficial way to scale a set of services and build a complex application in a cost effective manner.

I don't quite agree with the notion of being "stuck maintaining five apps, five APIs, etc." because it's not. It's really one app. You're doing something wrong if you feel that you have five different apps and APIs. In fact, your testing and debugging should become easier under such an architecture. Maintenance should be much better if done properly. Of course regardless of your software architecture, you can end up in "maintenance hell" so that's really an invalid argument against SoA. I certainly wouldn't let the fear of bad programming prevent me from using a specific design pattern or architecture.