What is vendor lock-in?

Try leaving a service you have used for ten years. Your files are in a proprietary format, your contacts scattered, your subscriptions tied to the same email address. Every exit takes effort. That is vendor lock-in: the more it costs to leave, the more you stay. And that cost is no accident. Like those subscriptions you can only cancel by registered mail, everything is arranged to make leaving painful.

With Google, the lock-in is gentle. Everything is free, everything works together, and your photos, your emails, your calendar intertwine a little more every year. When the urge to leave finally comes, the question is no longer “where would I go?” but “how much would I lose?”. Many give up right there, which is exactly the intended effect.

So where do you start? Always with the same move: getting your data back. Once your files are exported in open formats, the lock-in loses most of its grip. Retrieving your Google Takeout archive therefore comes before you even choose an alternative. Vendor lock-in also has a broader cousin, the walled garden, where the comfort of a whole ecosystem is what holds you.

Where it plays out: chapter 1 of the book starts precisely there, with the inventory and then the recovery of your data, and the guide to leaving Google lays out the overall plan.