The difference is that you can't be screwed by a single company deciding to change prices. When people refer to "lock-in", they are referring to being able to b

The difference is that you can't be screwed by a single company deciding to change prices. When people refer to "lock-in", they are referring to being able to be screwed by a single vendor. Nobody cares if they are locked into x86, tcp/ip, and http. If you don't understand this difference as an engineer, you end up causing a big risk to your company (or clients) without even knowing it.