Glossary / Vendor lock-in

Vendor lock-in

Dependence on a single supplier, platform, or carrier that is costly to leave — a risk to weigh when choosing connectivity and components.

Introduced in Chapter 8 — The Connectivity Watershed of Tangibles.

Related terms

• Unit economics — Whether a single manufactured unit earns a profit once the cost to source, build, test, and ship it at scale is counted — the make-or-break math beneath any hardware business.
• Waterfall (development) — A sequential build process in which each stage must finish before the next begins — well-suited to physical constraints, but resistant to iteration.
• Unboxing — The customer's first physical encounter with a product out of its package — a designed moment of first impression, not an afterthought.