# Re-platforming

**Published by:** [jer979](https://paragraph.com/@jer979-2/)
**Published on:** 2022-10-16
**URL:** https://paragraph.com/@jer979-2/re-platforming

## Content

For the last few years, my home office has involved a Microsoft Surface computer, a docking station, 2 external monitors and a bunch of peripherals. I’m in the midst of restructuring now to make the home office MacBook Pro-centric. It would be nice if I could use the exact same hub for the MacBook Pro as I do for the Surface, but I can’t. Each vendor wants me “locked in” to their platform. It creates switching costs, literally, in the form of buying a new hub, new adapters, and in time, in the form or trying to engineer a solution. This is the business model of the 20th century. And it has extended into the digital realm, to include our social media apps and financial apps, just to name a few. Go ahead, try to migrate all of your assets, information, debit cards, and credit information from Bank A to Bank B. We’ll wait. The vision of the digital-based business model of the 21st century, relying upon public decentralized ledgers is one where re-platforming is trivial. Because everything is open and permissionless, switching costs due to lock-in are almost non-existent. What “locks” you into an app (or a dapp) is the user experience. It’s the community. It’s not the technology. We should be able to move our assets however we want, whenever we want (within a few legal boundaries, of course, but I don’t think switching from Microsoft to Apple is one of those). One day, and probably sooner than we think, we will.

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