A market may offer several competing service providers, yet many customers continue using the same one for years.
This does not necessarily mean the alternatives are unattractive. Nor does it automatically mean customers are satisfied.
Changing a service provider can involve more than comparing prices and selecting a new subscription. Customers may need to transfer information, rebuild settings, learn unfamiliar systems, reconnect applications, or manage interruptions to activities they depend on.
The distinction is between having alternatives available and being able to use those alternatives in practice.
The OECD’s 2026 report Competition and Consumer Policy in Digital Markets examines how digital markets affect consumer choice, autonomy, and the relationship between competition and consumer protection.
Its broader findings reinforce the importance of looking beyond the availability of competing services when considering how consumers experience digital markets.
More choices do not always make switching easier.
Availability Is Not the Same as Practical Choice
Competition can provide consumers with alternatives in price, quality, features, reliability, and customer support.
The presence of several providers may create opportunities to select services that better match individual or business needs.
However, the number of available providers does not establish how easily an existing customer can move between them.
A new service may offer a lower subscription price but require substantial time to transfer records, adjust connected applications, and learn a different interface.
For a business customer, changing providers may also involve employee training and operational adjustments.
These burdens may not appear in advertised prices.
A market can therefore offer multiple services while some customers still face significant obstacles to switching.
Switching Costs Are Not Only Financial
Switching costs can include direct financial expenses.
Customers may face cancellation fees, equipment replacement costs, new subscription charges, or the loss of existing discounts.
Other costs involve time, effort, uncertainty, and potential disruption.
A customer may need to compare alternatives, export information, verify compatibility, update settings, and arrange support during a transition.
There may also be uncertainty about whether the replacement service will work as expected.
For organizations that depend on digital systems for daily operations, even a temporary interruption may carry consequences.
These costs can influence decisions even when a competing provider offers an attractive price.
The practical cost of switching is therefore not always visible in the subscription fee.
Data Can Make a Service Harder to Leave
Digital services often accumulate information over time.
That information may include documents, messages, transaction histories, contact lists, preferences, and records of previous activity.
Some of these records become increasingly useful as customers continue using a service.
When important information cannot be transferred easily, changing providers may require customers to rebuild parts of their digital activities.
The OECD’s research on data portability identifies the movement and reuse of data as relevant to user empowerment, innovation, and competition.
Portability can help address certain switching barriers, although its effectiveness depends on how it is implemented.
Being able to download information does not necessarily mean another service can use it.
A file may be available for export but incompatible with the system a customer wants to adopt.
Some information may transfer successfully while other records, relationships, or settings remain behind.
The practical value of portability depends on whether transferred information remains usable.
Portability and Interoperability Are Different
Data portability generally concerns the ability to move or reuse data between services.
Interoperability concerns the ability of different systems to communicate or operate together.
These capabilities address related but distinct problems.
A customer might be able to move personal records to a new service without maintaining connections to users who remain on the previous platform.
Alternatively, two services may exchange certain information without allowing customers to transfer their complete account histories.
OECD work on portability and interoperability examines how these arrangements may influence competition and the ability of users to move between services.
Neither capability guarantees that every switching barrier will disappear.
Technical compatibility, implementation costs, privacy, security, and the characteristics of individual markets can affect the outcome.
Greater data mobility may create opportunities, but it also requires attention to the risks associated with transferring information between systems.
Learning a New System Takes Time
Moving information is only one part of changing providers.
Customers also develop familiarity with the services they use.
Established interfaces, saved preferences, and routine procedures can make an existing service convenient.
A competing product may offer different features or improved performance but organize everyday activities in unfamiliar ways.
Individuals may need time to adapt.
Organizations with multiple employees may face additional training and coordination requirements.
The resulting costs may appear as lost time, temporary reductions in efficiency, or mistakes made during the transition.
These considerations help explain why customers do not always adopt an alternative immediately after discovering it.
The value of a service includes both what it offers and how effectively customers can use it.
Continuity Can Matter More Than a Lower Price
The importance of uninterrupted service varies.
A customer changing an entertainment subscription may tolerate a brief interruption.
A business replacing its communications, payment, booking, or record-management system may have less flexibility.
Daily operations can depend on continued access to information, functioning connections, and reliable services.
A lower subscription price may not compensate for uncertainty about whether essential activities will continue during a transition.
This does not mean that changing providers is necessarily undesirable.
It means that reliability and continuity may be legitimate considerations alongside price.
The relative importance of these factors depends on the service and the customer’s circumstances.
Loyalty and Lock-in Should Not Be Confused
Remaining with a provider does not automatically mean a customer is unable to leave.
Some customers stay because they are satisfied with the service.
Others value familiar features, reliable support, established relationships, or benefits accumulated over time.
These preferences may reflect genuine satisfaction.
Lock-in describes a different condition.
It arises when the costs or obstacles associated with leaving make switching difficult, even when a customer might otherwise prefer an alternative.
Both situations can produce the same observable result: the customer remains with the existing provider.
However, the reasons are different.
A low switching rate alone does not establish whether customers are satisfied or constrained.
Understanding customer choice requires recognizing that continued use can reflect different circumstances.
Benefits Can Influence Switching Decisions
Loyalty rewards, bundled services, stored credits, and account-specific benefits can make an existing provider more attractive.
Customers may reasonably value these arrangements.
Losing accumulated benefits can also increase the perceived cost of moving elsewhere.
That does not automatically make a loyalty programme unfair or harmful to competition.
The effect depends on the terms, the value customers receive, and whether they can reasonably understand the consequences of leaving.
Some arrangements represent ordinary commercial competition.
Others may contribute to switching difficulties when combined with complicated cancellation procedures, limited data portability, or incompatible systems.
The existence of a reward programme alone is not enough to determine its competitive effect.
Why More Providers May Not Produce Stronger Competitive Pressure
The availability of competing services can give customers additional options.
However, competitive pressure also depends on whether customers can compare and act on those options.
When switching involves substantial cost, effort, or uncertainty, an alternative provider may be less effective at attracting existing customers.
The OECD’s 2026 examination of competition and consumer policy in digital markets highlights the importance of consumer autonomy, choice, and the influence of digital business practices on consumer behaviour.
It also recognizes that competition and consumer protection concerns can overlap in digital environments.
These findings do not establish that every market with low switching rates is uncompetitive.
Nor do they mean that every large provider deliberately creates switching barriers.
Customer preferences, technical requirements, service reliability, and the characteristics of different markets can all influence outcomes.
The number of providers is therefore only one part of understanding the competitive environment.
Digital Market Design Can Affect Consumer Decisions
The way a digital service presents information can influence how customers evaluate their options.
Pricing structures, subscription terms, account settings, and cancellation processes may affect the practical experience of choosing or changing services.
The OECD’s 2026 report examines the intersection between competition and consumer protection, including concerns involving consumer autonomy and digital interface design.
The report emphasizes that digital market practices can raise questions extending beyond conventional measures such as price and output.
This matters because consumers do not interact with markets only through published price lists.
They interact through websites, applications, account interfaces, and the procedures required to use or leave a service.
A choice may be formally available while remaining difficult to exercise in practice.
At the same time, the effect of a particular design or commercial practice depends on its circumstances.
Not every inconvenient interface is evidence of deliberate restriction, and not every complex service arrangement produces the same competitive consequences.
Making Consumer Choice Meaningful
Meaningful choice involves more than the presence of several providers.
Customers also need sufficient information to understand available alternatives and a practical opportunity to act on their preferences.
In digital markets, this may depend on the ability to transfer important records, maintain necessary connections, understand service terms, and manage transitions without disproportionate disruption.
OECD research identifies data portability and interoperability as potentially relevant to competition and user empowerment, while recognizing that implementation brings technical and security considerations.
These findings do not imply that every customer should switch providers.
Remaining with a satisfactory service can be a reasonable decision.
The important distinction is whether customers stay because the service continues to meet their needs or because leaving would impose obstacles they cannot reasonably overcome.
Beyond the Number of Choices
Digital markets can offer consumers a wide range of products and services.
Additional providers may create opportunities for innovation, improved quality, and different pricing arrangements.
Yet the presence of alternatives does not guarantee that changing providers will be simple.
Information may be difficult to transfer. Systems may not work together. Customers may need to rebuild familiar routines or protect essential operations from disruption.
These considerations help explain why market choice and practical switching ability should not be treated as identical.
A customer may have several alternatives while facing meaningful costs in moving between them.
A market can offer many choices. What matters for consumers is whether those choices remain practical when they decide to make a change.
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Sources and References
- OECD. Competition and Consumer Policy in Digital Markets. OECD Roundtables on Competition Policy Papers, No. 332, 28 May 2026. https://doi.org/10.1787/042c0c49-en
- OECD. The Impact of Data Portability on User Empowerment, Innovation, and Competition. OECD Going Digital Toolkit Notes, No. 25, 29 June 2024. https://doi.org/10.1787/319f420f-en
- OECD. Mapping Data Portability Initiatives, Opportunities and Challenges. OECD Digital Economy Papers, No. 321, 20 December 2021. https://doi.org/10.1787/a6edfab2-en
- OECD. Data Portability, Interoperability and Competition. Competition Committee Roundtable, 9 June 2021. https://www.oecd.org/en/events/2021/06/data-portability-interoperability-and-competition.html