"Avoid platform lock-in at all costs" is advice that paralyzes more projects than it saves.

"Avoid platform lock-in at all costs" is advice that paralyzes more projects than it saves.

Lock-in is a real cost, but treating it as a dealbreaker for every project is how you end up over-engineering a 6-page landing site with a headless stack you'll never need. The honest correction: lock-in matters in proportion to switching pain times switching probability. A marketing site you'll redesign in 18 months anyway? Lock-in is nearly free. Your core revenue product? Then it matters. Stop applying enterprise fear to brochure-ware.

The correction: weight lock-in by exit likelihood, not dread. Fight me.