this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2026
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Yes, this has everything to do with AI, because this is an AI vendor locking out a customer from their ordinary workflow.
At the same time, this is a generalizable example not limited to AI, where any form of vendor lock-in on a critical business function becomes a potential point of failure when the vendor drops the customer or stops working. It's true of a cloud provider, an email provider, an ISP, any software provider that can revoke access/authority, or even non-tech vendors like a landlord or a temp agency or an electric utility.
Landlord lock in, that's a funny one. So what's the plan, move to another town because you can't find a 4 story building available for next week to avoid rent increase?
This is actually a pretty common concern for businesses on dealing with whether and how to protect themselves when installing improvements, business-critical equipment, or other hard-to-move stuff on land or in a building without a long term lease in place.
The tenant deals with it by either building out a portable infrastructure to where they can move their business quickly if need be, or by protecting themselves legally to where the landlord can't kick them out on a short notice, by negotiating a long term lease.