Opportunity and Carrying Costs

Opportunity cost

An opportunity cost is basically a one-time cost to produce something. By committing to work, we necessarily cut off other avenues of opportunity. This cost can be a useful lens to compare two different approaches when trying to perform a cost/benefit analysis. An opportunity cost we’ll take in a few lessons is writing robust scripts for setting up our app, running it, and running its tests. It has a higher opportunity cost than simply writing documentation about how to do those things.

However, sometimes an investment is worth making. We must analyze the carrying cost to know if it's worth it.