Airbyte began with the decision to tackle data integration challenges through open-source solutions, specifically focusing on ELT (Extract, Load, Transform) processes, to build a strong community of contributors. This decision was influenced by the limitations and costs of existing closed-source tools like Fivetran and StitchData, which prompted companies to create their own in-house connectors. Airbyte's open-source approach, supported by their Connector Development Kit (CDK), allows users to efficiently build and maintain connectors, addressing a wide range of integration needs. Their infrastructure pricing model, based on compute time, supports scalable and cost-effective database replication, which is crucial as database volumes can far exceed those of API sources. Airbyte aims to expand beyond ELT to include reverse-ETL and event-driven integrations, leveraging its growing community of data engineers to cover a broad spectrum of connectors. Ultimately, Airbyte seeks to become the standard platform for all data movement, offering comprehensive solutions with transparent pricing and extensibility, and paving the way for advanced data products such as data quality, observability, and compliance.