As a sibling comment pointed out, applications built for x86 PCs don't even need to be recompiled to run on compatible processors by another manufacturer. (Heck

As a sibling comment pointed out, applications built for x86 PCs don't even need to be recompiled to run on compatible processors by another manufacturer. (Heck, even across architectures you can usually recompile relatively easily provided the software is written in a high-level language with a compiler available there.) That is very much not the case with cloud providers' APIs; they're largely provider-specific. The closest equivalent in the cloud provider ecosystem is probably Kubernetes; there are provider-specific extensions (and I recommend avoiding those where possible) but largely things work the same across providers. I'd say a more representative example of lock-in in the PC ecosystem is that of proprietary OS vendors. If you're targeting specifically iOS/Android (w/ Play Services)/macOS/Windows/etc, then yes, you're beholden to the vendor (to varying degrees in each case). You may accept that risk, but you should always be aware of it.