Research preview. Independent expert review is pending. The worked analyses are hypothetical. Method and corrections
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ConditionChoices and conditionsestablished

Lock-in

The state in which technical dependencies, market structures, or harmful practices have become embedded conditions that are costly or impossible to reverse, often through increasing returns to early adoption.

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Source-linked claims

source-assertionConfidence: highContestability: medium

Under increasing returns to adoption, small early events can lock a market into one technology, including an inferior one, making later reversal costly.

Our reading: Source-level citation pending passage review. Whether historical lock-in to inferior standards was as common as these papers suggest is itself debated in economics; the mechanism is not.

Inspect evidence · source links · passage review pending

Passage summaries are paraphrases, not quotations. Open the source to read the full passage.

Competing Technologies, Increasing Returns, and Lock-In by Historical Events (opens in a new tab)

Source-level attribution only. A precise supporting passage has not yet been recorded. Existing locator: Arthur, abstract and section I; David, the QWERTY keyboard case.

Clio and the Economics of QWERTY (opens in a new tab)

Source-level attribution only. A precise supporting passage has not yet been recorded. Existing locator: Arthur, abstract and section I; David, the QWERTY keyboard case.

source-assertionConfidence: highContestability: low

Early in a technology's development change is easy but its consequences are poorly understood; once the consequences are clear, change has become costly and slow.

Our reading: Source-level citation pending passage review against the 1980 text. The dilemma is widely restated; this record cites the original.

Inspect evidence · source links · passage review pending

Passage summaries are paraphrases, not quotations. Open the source to read the full passage.

The Social Control of Technology (opens in a new tab)

Source-level attribution only. A precise supporting passage has not yet been recorded. Existing locator: Chapter 1, 'The dilemma of control'.

source-assertionConfidence: highContestability: low

US federal AI contracts must give agencies the right to keep monitoring system performance and should limit vendor lock-in, so purchasing terms carry safeguards into the market.

Inspect evidence · 1 passage

Passage summaries are paraphrases, not quotations. Open the source to read the full passage.

M-25-22: Driving Efficient Acquisition of Artificial Intelligence in Government (opens in a new tab)

Section 4(d), ongoing testing and monitoring; Section 4(c)(ii), vendor lock-in

AI contracts must let the buying agency keep monitoring and evaluating the system’s performance, and should include terms such as knowledge transfer that reduce the risk of vendor lock-in.

Scope note: Rescinds and replaces M-24-18. Applies to federal executive agencies; excludes national security systems.

Passage checked 2026-10-09 · omb-m-25-22-monitoring

Appears in worked analyses

Provenance

  1. Competing Technologies, Increasing Returns, and Lock-In by Historical Events

    The Economic Journal (Royal Economic Society) · scholarship · publication date not recorded · Economic Journal 99(394), March 1989, pp. 116–131

    The DOI resolves to the publisher's record; the article is behind a subscription. Passage-level review is pending.

    arthur-lock-in · Last checked 2026-09-06 · claims and passages

  2. Clio and the Economics of QWERTY

    American Economic Review (American Economic Association) · scholarship · publication date not recorded · American Economic Review 75(2), May 1985, pp. 332–337

    The JSTOR record was verified; the article requires library access. Passage-level review is pending.

    david-qwerty · Last checked 2026-09-06 · claims and passages

  3. The Social Control of Technology

    Frances Pinter, London · book · publication date not recorded · 1980 edition, 200 pages

    The link is an Internet Archive library record with restricted lending, not an open copy. Locators refer to chapter 1. Passage-level review is pending.

    collingridge-social-control · Last checked 2026-09-06 · claims and passages

  4. M-25-22: Driving Efficient Acquisition of Artificial Intelligence in Government

    US Office of Management and Budget · guidance · published 2025-04-03 · M-25-22

    Rescinds and replaces M-24-18. Applies to federal executive agencies; excludes national security systems.

    omb-m-25-22 · Last checked 2026-10-09 · claims and passages