使用者:暁月凜奈/供應商鎖定

供應商鎖定（英語：vendor lock-in），也稱為廠商鎖定、專有鎖定（英語：proprietary lock-in）、客戶鎖定（英語：customer lock-in），是指客戶依賴於某個供應商的產品，在不支付大量轉換成本的情況下無法轉而使用其它供應商的情況。

與使系統能夠容納更多變化的開放標準及替代選項相反，供應商鎖定使用戶更難從一種解決方案轉移到另一種解決方案。當供應商鎖定造成市場准入壁壘時，供應商可能受到反壟斷訴訟。

Lock-in types

Monopolistic	Collective	Popular term
No	否	不適用
	是	Technology lock-in
Yes	否	Vendor lock-in
	是

Monopolistic

Whether a single vendor controls the market for the method or technology being locked in to. Distinguishes between being locked to the mere technology, or specifically the vendor of it.

This class of lock-in is potentially technologically hard to overcome if the monopoly is held up by barriers to market that are nontrivial to circumvent, such as patents, secrecy, cryptography or other technical hindrances.

Collective

Whether individuals are locked in collectively, in part through each other. Economically, there is a cost to resist the locally dominant choice, as if by friction between individuals. In a mathematical model of differential equations, disregarding 離散空間 of individuals, this is a 分佈式參數系統 in market share, applicable for modeling by 偏微分方程s, for example the 熱傳導方程式.

This class of lock-in is potentially inescapable to rational individuals not otherwise motivated, by creating a 囚徒困境—if the cost to resist is greater than the cost of joining, then the locally optimal choice is to join—a barrier that takes cooperation to overcome. The distributive property (cost to resist the locally dominant choice) alone is not a 網絡外部性, for lack of any 正回饋; however, the addition of 雙穩 per individual, such as by a switching cost, qualifies as a network effect, by distributing this instability to the collective as a whole.

Technology lock-in

As defined by 獨立報 (英國), this is a non-monopoly (mere technology), collective (on a society level) kind of lock-in:

Technological lock-in is the idea that the more a society adopts a certain technology, the more unlikely users are to switch.

Examples:

• The continued prevalence of the QWERTY鍵盤 keyboard layout is said to be caused by technological lock-in.
• Carbon lock-in is the theory that society has become reliant on carbon intensive technologies, thereby hindering 可再生能源商業化.
• Converting one 有損數據壓縮 into another incurs a generation loss that reduces quality. This is in effect a switching cost. Therefore, if valuable content is encoded in the format, this creates a need for continued compatibility with it.

Personal technology lock-in

Technology lock-in, as defined, is strictly of the collective kind. However, the personal variant is also a possible 排列 of the variations shown in the table, but with no monopoly and no collectivity, it would be expected to be the weakest lock-in. Equivalent personal examples:

• A person who has become proficient on QWERTY keyboards will have an incentive to continue using QWERTY keyboards.
• A car owner has an incentive to make use of their car, because using it is cheap compared to the total cost of car ownership; the car is said to be a 沉沒成本.
• A person who has ripped their CD collection to MP3 will have an incentive to prefer audio equipment that supports this format; and vice versa, for personal investment reasons, has an incentive to continue ripping to this format.
• A person who has most of their multimedia equipment interconnected with HDMI will tend to seek HDMI compatibility to all their other multimedia-capable equipment (although this is a far less severe case of lock-in than those above, due to the wide availability of adapters that can be used to connect HDMI equipment to and from—for instance—DVI or DisplayPort equipment).

Collective vendor lock-in

There exist lock-in situations that are both monopolistic and collective. Having the worst of two worlds, these can be very hard to escape — in many examples, the cost to resist incurs some level of isolation from the (dominating technology in) society, which can be socially costly, yet direct competition with the dominant vendor is hindered by compatibility.

As one blogger expressed:

If I stopped using Skype, I'd lose contact with many people, because it's impossible to make them all change to [other] software.

While MP3 is patent-free as of 2017, in 2001 it was both patented and entrenched, as noted by 理察·斯托曼 in that year (in justifying a lax license for Vorbis):

there is […] the danger that people will settle on MP3 format even though it is patented, and we won't be *allowed* to write free encoders for the most popular format. […] Ordinarily, if someone decides not to use a copylefted program because the license doesn't please him, that's his loss not ours. But if he rejects the Ogg/Vorbis code because of the license, and uses MP3 instead, then the problem rebounds on us—because his continued use of MP3 may help MP3 to become and stay entrenched.

More examples:

• Proprietary file formats that have become widespread on the 全球資訊網: examples include GIF (patent expired), Adobe Flash and H.264/MPEG-4 AVC.
• Communication services that require membership with the same vendor as the communication partner: Unlike 電訊公司 or email service providers, which enable communication with competing providers' users, services like Skype and Facebook are effectively single-vendor communication protocols. Facebook is said to have achieved technological lock-in, in terms of its self-reinforcing presence on a society level. However, if the lock-in is to Facebook specifically, not 社群媒體 in general, then it is fair to promote this title to collective vendor lock-in.

例子

微軟

主條目：對微軟的批評 § 壟斷

The 歐洲聯盟執委會, in its March 24, 2004 decision on Microsoft's business practices, quotes, in paragraph 463, Microsoft general manager for C++ development Aaron Contorer as stating in a February 21, 1997 internal Microsoft memo drafted for 比爾·蓋茨:

"The Windows API is so broad, so deep, and so functional that most 獨立軟體供應商 [independent software vendors] would be crazy not to use it. And it is so deeply embedded in the source code of many Windows apps that there is a huge switching cost to using a different operating system instead. It is this switching cost that has given customers the patience to stick with Windows through all our mistakes, our buggy drivers, our high TCO [total cost of ownership], our lack of a sexy vision at times, and many other difficulties. […] Customers constantly evaluate other desktop platforms, [but] it would be so much work to move over that they hope we just improve Windows rather than force them to move. In short, without this exclusive franchise called the Windows API, we would have been dead a long time ago. The Windows franchise is fueled by application development which is focused on our core APIs."

Microsoft's application software also exhibits lock-in through the use of proprietary 檔案格式s. Microsoft Outlook uses a proprietary, publicly undocumented datastore format. Present versions of Microsoft Word have introduced a new format Office Open XML. This may make it easier for competitors to write documents compatible with Microsoft Office in the future by reducing lock-in. Microsoft released full descriptions of the file formats for earlier versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint in February 2008.

蘋果

主條目：Criticism of Apple Inc. § Accusations of anti-competitive behavior

Prior to March 2009, digital music files with 數字版權管理 (DRM) were available for purchase from the iTunes Store, encoded in a proprietary derivative of the 進階音訊編碼 format that used Apple's FairPlay DRM system. These files are compatible only with Apple's ITunes media player software on 麥金塔 and Microsoft Windows, their IPod portable digital music players, IPhone 智慧型手機s, IPad 平板電腦s, and the 摩托羅拉 ROKR E1 and SLVR mobile phones. As a result, that music was locked into this ecosystem and available for portable use only through the purchase of one of the above devices, or by burning to 雷射唱片 and optionally re-ripping to a DRM-free format such as MP3 or WAV.

In January, 2005, an IPod purchaser named Thomas Slattery filed a suit against Apple for the "unlawful bundling" of their iTunes Music Store and iPod device. He stated in his brief: "Apple has turned an open and interactive standard into an artifice that prevents consumers from using the portable hard drive digital music player of their choice." At the time Apple was stated to have an 80% market share of digital music sales and a 90% share of sales of new music players, which he claimed allowed Apple to horizontally leverage its dominant positions in both markets to lock consumers into its complementary offerings. In September 2005, U.S. District Judge James Ware approved Slattery v. Apple Computer Inc. to proceed with monopoly charges against Apple in violation of the 休曼法案.

On June 7, 2006, the Norwegian Consumer Council stated that Apple's iTunes Music Store violates Norwegian law. The contract conditions were vague and "clearly unbalanced to disfavor the customer". The retroactive changes to the DRM conditions and the incompatibility with other music players are the major points of concern. In an earlier letter to Apple, consumer ombudsman Bjørn Erik Thon complained that iTunes' DRM mechanism was a lock-in to Apple's music players, and argued that this was a conflict with consumer rights that he doubted would be defendable by Norwegian copyright law.

截至2007年5月29日 (2007-05-29), tracks on the EMI label became available in a DRM-free format called ITunes Store. These files are unprotected and are encoded in the AAC format at 256 碼率單位, twice the bitrate of standard tracks bought through the service. iTunes accounts can be set to display either standard or iTunes Plus formats for tracks where both formats exist. These files can be used with any player that supports the AAC file format and are not locked to Apple hardware. They can be converted to MP format if desired.

As of January 6, 2009, all four big music studios (華納兄弟, Sony BMG, 環球音樂集團, and EMI) have signed up to remove the DRM from their tracks, at no extra cost. However, Apple charges consumers to have previously purchased DRM music restrictions removed.

Google

Although Google has stated its position in favor of interoperability, the company has taken steps away from open protocols replacing open standard Google Talk by proprietary protocol Google Hangouts. Also, Google's Data Liberation Front has been inactive on Twitter since 2013 and its official website, www.dataliberation.org, now redirects to a page on Google's FAQs, leading users to believe the project has been closed. Google's mobile operating system Android is open source; however, the operating system that comes with the phones that most people actually purchase in a store is more often than not shipped with many of Google's proprietary applications that promote users to use only Google services.

其它

• Many printer manufacturers claim that if any ink cartridges, beyond those sold by themselves, are used in the printer, the warranty of the printer becomes void. Lexmark tried to go further, making ink cartridges containing an authentication system, the purpose of which was intended to make it illegal in the United States (under the 數字千年版權法) for a competitor to make an ink cartridge compatible with Lexmark printers. The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held in 2004 that third parties replicating such devices purely to make their cartridges interface with printers does not in fact violate the DMCA.
• Test strips for 血糖儀s are typically made for a specific make or model. Strips designed for 羅氏 devices, for example, are incompatible with meters from other manufacturers. This lack of standardization can lead to problems especially in 開發中國家, where glucose meters and their associated strips are a scarce commodity. Some companies, despite claiming to have lifetime warranty on their products, stop making specific models and their respective strips so that even those who have a good functioning model have to buy a new model.
• The K-Cup single-serving coffee pod system was covered by a patent owned by Keurig, which is a subsidiary of 克里格胡椒博士, and no other manufacturer could create K-Cup packs compatible with Keurig coffee makers without a license from Keurig. While the company does have patents on improvements to the system, the original K-Cup patents expired in September 2012. Other single-serving coffee brands, such as 奈斯派索, also have proprietary systems.
• 鏡頭接口s of competing 照相機 manufacturers are almost always incompatible. Therefore, a photographer with a set of lens mounts of a certain manufacturer will prefer not to buy a camera from another manufacturer.
• 英偉達, as of 2018, still only supports the proprietary Nvidia G-Sync despite the availability of the open VESA (VESA) standard Adaptive Sync technology (FreeSync). In January 2019, Nvidia announced that it will advance compatibility of its video cards with FreeSync-compatible monitors.
• Some cordless tool manufacturers make batteries that fit only their own brand of tools, and often are not backwards compatible. Often multiple brands are owned by the same company, and share tool designs and features, accessories and batteries are deliberately changed to make them incompatible. An example would be 史丹利百得 which also owns or manufactures Black & Decker, 得偉, Porter Cable, Mastercraft, and Craftsman. All use almost identical batteries, yet all have some feature designed to stop use in other tools.
• 戴爾 laptops will 'throttle', or limit the processing speed available to the end-user, if genuine Dell OEM power supplies are not used with their devices (Users are presented with the warning: "The AC adapter type cannot be determined. This will prevent optimal system performance.").

參見

• 封閉平臺
• 數據可移植性
• 擁抱、擴展再消滅
• 自由軟體
• 網絡外部性
• 路徑依賴
• 專有軟體
• 剃刀與刀片商業模式
• 區域限制
• 訂閱
• 格式大戰
• Enshittification
• Protocol ossification
• Tivoization

參考資料

• Arthur, W. B. Competing technologies, increasing returns, and lock-in by historical events. Economic Journal. 1989, 97: 642–665. 
• David, P. A. Clio and the economics of QWERTY.. American Economic Review. 1985, 75: 332–337. 
• Liebowitz, S. J.; Margolis, Stephen E. Path dependence, lock-in and history. Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization. 1995, 11: 205–226. 
• Liebowitz, S. J.; Margolis, Stephen E. Path Dependence" entry. The New Palgraves Dictionary of Economics and the Law (MacMillan). 1998. 
• Liebowitz, S. J.; Margolis, Stephen E. The Fable of the Keys. Journal of Law and Economics. 1990, 33: 1–26. S2CID 14262869. doi:10.1086/467198. 

外部連結

• Vendor Lock-in Definition by The Linux Information Project
• "The Intertemporal Dynamics of Consumer Lock-In" (PDF) by Gal ZAUBERMAN
• Dynamic competition by Wikibooks
• Nash equilibrium by Wikibooks