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Stop scare-quoting "lock-in". Lock-in means development effort to get out of a system, regardless of how trivial you think it is.

If writing code to be able to move to a different cloud isn't considered lock-in, then nothing is since anyone can write code to do anything themselves.



Lock in is an economic concept, it’s not just about code but about “switching costs”. Ecosystem benefits, data gravity etc all come into play.

There are two kinds of lock-in: high cost because no competitor does as a good a job - this is good lock-in, and trying to avoid this just means you’re not building the thing optimally in the first place.

There is also high switching cost because of unique interface and implementation requirmenrs that don’t add any value over a more interopable standard. This is the kind that’s worth avoiding if you can.




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