The Lock-In Effect

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, in his analysis of platform economics, proposed: **the power of platforms (OTAs) comes from "switching costs" — the cost for a guest to switch platforms is greater than the cost of staying.**

What are the OTA's switching costs? Points, review systems, familiar interfaces, membership tiers. These make guests "too lazy to switch."

What you need to do is **create your own switching costs** — give guests who have stayed with you before a reason to stay in your orbit, rather than going back to the OTA to search every time.

Limited-time group buys are that wedge.