:PROPERTIES:
:CREATED:  [2026-05-24 Sun]
:ID:       2f783eb4-638e-5afa-9b59-6224d086a712
:END:
#+title: Infrastructure Lock-In and Switching Costs
#+filetags: :passepartout:economics:moats:lock-in:switching:

A hospital that runs [[id:28c46769-c14b-42aa-ac7a-69d310157f8f][Passepartout]] with [[id:84fb5f8f-0527-4df0-b6b6-dbf3bcff8a7f][HIPAA]] gate rules ($50K/yr) for five years has accumulated:

- A fact store with a decade of compliance decisions
- A proof forest of verified rules
- An empirical decision history tied to their specific deployment
- Customized gate rules encoding their specific workflows and approvals

Switching to a competitor means discarding all of it. The accumulated value grows as the fact store deepens. Annual revenue per enterprise grows from $250K in year one to $500K-$1M by year five as more [[id:c34940cc-090e-57c4-8020-e78b1d32b96c][domain packages]] are added.

This is the strongest residual [[id:aa6d062e-a520-5d14-8773-00687ed9c689][moat]]. The [[id:45258a2d-1675-562c-9024-5d1eb2f1ea56][[[id:45258a2d-1675-562c-9024-5d1eb2f1ea56][evaluation harness]] (see the [[id:3b43a9b8-31d1-4479-a35f-22273b74f0c7][Social protocol infrastructure requirements]] for the network topology that creates this lock-in)]] (regression suite) is a close second — it grows with every deployment and cannot be ingested from public data. The [[id:827bc546-e887-5b7c-9b65-6392beaf0920][verification monopoly]] and [[id:29e4dbf3-cf19-589c-8b14-389e8a39d564][upgrade lifecycle]] compound this lock-in: every new regulation encoded as a gate rule deepens the proof forest, making the deployment harder to reproduce elsewhere.