In episode 5 of the Observe It podcast, host Daniela Miao and guest Alex Kehlenbeck, a Distinguished Software Engineer at Lightstep, discuss the complexities and fragmentation of the observability industry, with a particular focus on the challenges posed by high cardinality in metrics. They explore how high cardinality affects the usability and cost of observability tools and discuss the historical difficulties in managing it. The conversation highlights advancements in the OLAP space that could improve observability tools and emphasizes the need for a shift in the industry’s mindset to enhance user experience. Alex discusses pricing model issues, noting customer reluctance to adopt alternatives based on data bytes rather than cardinality, and describes how Lightstep uses OLAP-inspired storage systems to make observability more cost-effective. The episode also covers the potential for disruption in pricing models, the importance of optimizing for cost and performance, and concludes with a discussion on the need for smaller players in the industry to drive change and the future convergence of metrics, traces, and logs for a seamless user experience.