Build Basics / Industry term
Vendor lock-in
Vendor lock-in is depending so heavily on one platform's specific tools and formats that your work breaks or becomes expensive to move when that platform changes, raises prices, or shuts down a feature you rely on.
Vendor lock-in is depending so heavily on one platform's specific tools and formats that your work breaks or becomes expensive to move when that platform changes, raises prices, or shuts down a feature you rely on. The cost shows up the day you want to leave. Picture a to-do app where every task, note, and reminder lives only inside one AI assistant's private memory, in a format no other tool can read. When that assistant retires the feature or doubles its price, your to-do list is stranded; there is no clean file to hand to a different tool. The more your instructions and data live in one product's proprietary shape, the harder switching becomes.
Builder example
If you build a workflow around one assistant's private memory, custom file format, or proprietary plugin, you inherit that vendor's roadmap. A password-reset helper that stores its rules only inside one platform stops working the moment that platform changes the feature. Keep your instructions in plain text files and your records in a portable format you own, so you can point a different tool at the same material and pick up where you left off.
Common confusion: Lock-in is about how hard it is to leave, not how good the tool is today. A genuinely useful assistant can still trap your work if its instructions and data only exist in a shape no other tool can read. The switching cost is what defines lock-in.