Commercial
Vendor lock-in
Lock-in has three common forms: contractual (terms that make exit expensive), technical (proprietary formats or platform-specific architecture), and knowledge (only the vendor understands the system, because nothing was documented).
The third is the most common and the least discussed, because it does not require anyone to have acted in bad faith. A system built with conventional tools and no documentation is just as captive as one built on a proprietary platform.
The defenses are contractual and practical: own the source and the accounts outright, insist on documentation written for someone who was not in the room, and prefer widely-known technology unless there is a specific reason not to.
Lock-in converts every future negotiation into one you cannot walk away from, which shows up in the rates you are quoted.
Commonly misunderstood
What people get wrong
The claim
“We own the code, so we're not locked in.”
What is actually true
Owning code nobody but the author can operate is ownership on paper. The test is whether a competent engineer you hire next year can take it over — and the answer is decided by documentation and technology choices, not by the contract.
Where this comes up
Services where it matters
Related terms
Next step
Working through a vendor lock-in decision?
Tell us the situation. We will give you the tradeoffs as we see them, including when the answer is that you do not need what you are being sold.
No pitch deck. A 30-minute conversation about what you are trying to achieve.