Scientific Definition
What does it cost to leave?
Plain-English Definition
What does it cost to leave?
Feynman Explanation
The deepest moats are made of inconvenience.
Core Principle
What does it cost to leave?
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
What does it cost to leave?
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Designing customer and employee architecture.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
The deepest moats are made of inconvenience.
Examples
- Enterprise software lock-in. Friendship. Cultural fit.
- Designing customer and employee architecture.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Periodically estimate every key vendor's switching cost. Don't be surprised later.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Periodically estimate every key vendor's switching cost. Don't be surprised later.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
Click any neighbor to re-center the graph and follow the threads of connection.
Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
Fixed costs don't scale with output; variable costs do.
Exploiting price differences between markets for risk-free profit.
The study of how real humans actually decide — bounded, social, emotional, and inconsistent.
With clear property rights and low transaction costs, parties negotiate to efficient outcomes.
Specialize in what you give up the least to do.
Complements raise each other's value; substitutes lower it.
Innovation destroys old industries and creates new ones.
Each additional unit produces less marginal benefit.
A long-run planner self in conflict with a short-run impulsive self.
Owning something raises its valuation — sellers want more to give it up than buyers will pay to acquire.
Bad money drives out good when both are legally equivalent.
The mythical fully rational, self-interested, utility-maximizing agent neoclassical models assume.