CONCEPT
Lock-In (Shapiro Framework)
The economic mechanism by which voluntary adoption becomes involuntary dependence through the accumulation of platform-specific investments — the subject of Shapiro's career-long investigation and the force now operating at unprecedented speed in AI markets.
Lock-in arises when users accumulate investments — in learning, data, workflows, and complementary goods — that are specific to a chosen platform and cannot be transferred to alternatives without cost. The investments compound with each interaction, each individually small enough to feel inconsequential, until the compound total exceeds the benefit of switching to any alternative. At that point, the user is locked in — not by contract or coercion but by the accumulated weight of her own rational decisions. The mechanism transfers bargaining power from user to platform provider, because the locked-in user cannot credibly threaten exit. AI platforms are generating lock-in at speed and depth unprecedented in the history of information goods.
In The You On AI Field Guide
Shapiro and Varian identified lock-in as a defining feature of information markets in Information Rules: Switching to incompatible products is difficult, so customers can get 'locked in' once they have made an investment in information goods based on a given technology. The
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