alt Hacker NewsWell if just price/performance alone is enough to qualify… viz. IBM, Then the moment another mainframe vendor decided to undercut them by say 20%, the lock in would evaporate. Of course no mainframe vendor would likely do so, but the latent possibility is always there.
Facebook is an example of ‘amazing lock in’ where it’s not theoretically possible for any potential competitor to just negate it with the stroke of a pen.
The reason they are locked in is because they are the only game in town for this use case, done this way. That’s why I’m saying it, yeah?
It isn’t a price point thing.