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> We may have complained for decades when software locked us in; now, we’re happy to stay. Being willing to trade-off higher costs and less control in order to

> We may have complained for decades when software locked us in; now, we’re happy to stay. Being willing to trade-off higher costs and less control in order to use new technology is commonplace in consumer tech. Nobody has ever been "happy" about this vendor lock-in, why would no-code be any different? The current proprietary tools are valuable but they don't allow users to export their creations between vendors offering the same functionality - that means they are more locked-in then ever. Users have the added emotional element of having to abandon their creation and accept the sunk-cost if they want to switch. I'm quite sure that nobody is happy about that fact.

yowlingcat 6y ago
> I'm quite sure that nobody is happy about that fact. Indeed. I think the original post may have mistaken effect for cause. We can look across the course of human history at many cases of authority figures and those who interact with them, but generally, forcing any kind of lock-in has weird second order effects, and sometimes "the cure is worse than the ailment" -- so too I think it could be here. What would be needed to show this? Portability, for one. The open-core model exists for a reason. Software lock-in needs to be voluntary to be defendable. If you don't make it easy for your users to switch, you have no proof that they are staying with you because you are the best option, not just what they are forced to use. This can be very dangerous for an organization which takes its incumbence for granted, which is basically every large B2B sales-led SaaS org, almost by default. It means that when an upstart figures out how to out-execute you, you will have ossified into a living fossil whose organs they will consume from the inside out all in one go, rather than getting advanced notice ahead of time while you can still course correct. Convenience is great and all, but on a long enough corporate lifecycle/lifespan (and they seem to be getting shorter and shorter these days), un-sustainability eventually takes its toll.
- ozim 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_portability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_portability There is data portability in EU and you can get all your data... But it probably is useless or at least not as useful as in context of the SaaS you were using.
  - wizzwizz4 6y ago
    There's a legal requirement for data portability. That's a different thing.

yowlingcat 6y ago

> I'm quite sure that nobody is happy about that fact. Indeed. I think the original post may have mistaken effect for cause. We can look across the course of human history at many cases of authority figures and those who interact with them, but generally, forcing any kind of lock-in has weird second order effects, and sometimes "the cure is worse than the ailment" -- so too I think it could be here. What would be needed to show this? Portability, for one. The open-core model exists for a reason. Software lock-in needs to be voluntary to be defendable. If you don't make it easy for your users to switch, you have no proof that they are staying with you because you are the best option, not just what they are forced to use. This can be very dangerous for an organization which takes its incumbence for granted, which is basically every large B2B sales-led SaaS org, almost by default. It means that when an upstart figures out how to out-execute you, you will have ossified into a living fossil whose organs they will consume from the inside out all in one go, rather than getting advanced notice ahead of time while you can still course correct. Convenience is great and all, but on a long enough corporate lifecycle/lifespan (and they seem to be getting shorter and shorter these days), un-sustainability eventually takes its toll.

ozim 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_portability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_portability There is data portability in EU and you can get all your data... But it probably is useless or at least not as useful as in context of the SaaS you were using.
- wizzwizz4 6y ago
  There's a legal requirement for data portability. That's a different thing.