Lock-in 27#
Customers are locked into a vendor's world of products and services. Using another vendor is impossible without incurring substantial switching costs, and thus protecting the company from losing customers. This lock-in is either generated by technological mechanisms or substantial interdependencies of products or services.
Examples: Iconic Cases
How they do it: Through the personal nature of a user’s Facebook network of friends, switching costs to other platforms are increased with a larger network of friends on the platform.
Learn more about Facebook →
How they do it: The more files customers have saved on their Dropbox’ file hosting space and the more devices are linked to it or the more users the space is shared with, the more effort it is to switch to another service.
Learn more about Dropbox →
How they do it: With purchasing Sega Dreamcast, a video game console system, customers were locked into the particular ecosystem of controllers and video games. Competitors’ video games, for instance, were not compatible with the Sega system. Therefore, owners of a Sega-console were limited to titles released for its dedicated platform.
Learn more about Sega →
How they do it: Nespresso coffee system is protected by more than 100 patents. This allowed the company to keep competitors from selling coffee capsules compatible with the Nespresso system. However in recent years some patents expired leading to multiple brands manufacturing and selling Nespresso compatible coffee capsules.
Learn more about Nestlé Nespresso →
How they do it: Gillette pioneered the system of single-use razorblades as consumables. By being the only manufacturer of razor blades compatible with its razors, customers have no choice but to buy Gilette’s razorblades once they own the razor.
Learn more about Gillette →
Below, the top industries for the pattern "Lock-in" are displayed, in order to get insights into how this pattern is applied across different industries. We've collected data from 5 firms using this pattern.
Top Industries
18% of firms using pattern
14% of firms using pattern
14% of firms using pattern
All Industries
Below, the pattern "Lock-in" is analyzed based on co-occurrence, in order to get insights into how this business model pattern is applied in combination with other patterns within the firms we studied.
Top Co-Occurrences
8 pattern co-occurrences
6 pattern co-occurrences
6 pattern co-occurrences