Lennart Schneider has a great article called “Lock-in effects: How to make your subscription irreplaceable”
A “lock-in effect” is a way to capture a customer, and Lennart is clear that he’s not recommending all of these. Some of them sound like “dark patterns.”
He identifies 9.
Ecosystem. This is like the Apple vs. Android or Apple vs. Microsoft issue. People are likely to think, “You know, I’ve already spent all this money on Apple software. I’ll lose all that if I switch.” Sometimes that’s a real issue, and sometimes it’s just the sunk-cost fallacy speaking. In either event, it does keep people locked in to a product.
Data. Maybe you have all your family photos in one system and it’s a pain – or even impossible – to move everything somewhere else.
Personalization. If you’ve been using Spotify for a long time, you’ve spent all that time refining the algorithm so it can appeal to your musical tastes. If you switch to another service you’ll lose all that.
Network effects. Some services become more valuable when other people use them. If all your friends use one service, or if everyone in your industry uses one service, that might keep you faithful to that service. A new service might be objectively better, but it doesn’t have the right people.
Price guarantees. If you grandfather people in at a lower price, it gets harder each year for them to change. The Washington Post offered a guaranteed price for 50 years. After year 20, it’s probably hard to switch to another paper.
Credits. Let’s say I’m tired of Audible, but I realize I’ve accumulated 20 credits that I can use towards my next book. If I leave, I lose all of those.
Additional users. When a subscription is used with other people – friends, family, or colleagues – it’s much more difficult to go to another service.
Bundling. I get Hulu for free because I have Spotify. If I cancel Spotify, I lose Hulu.
Status. Apple is the best example. I’ve been told by tech geeks that their products are objectively less impressive than Android phones, but there’s some sort of social cache to having an iPhone.
These are all great things to consider, but there is a bit of a fine line at times between making yourself irreplaceable and being annoying. For example, making it hard for your customers to get their own data out of your platform might keep them as a customer, but not a happy customer.
Resources
Lock-in effects: How to make your subscription irreplaceable
