The Developer's Guide to API Vendor Lock-In

You pick an API provider. You integrate it. You ship features. Months pass. The product works. Then the provider raises prices 300%. Or they deprecate the endpoints you depend on. Or they get acquired and the new owners have "different strategic priorities." Or their service degrades and support tickets go unanswered. You need to switch. But switching means rewriting the integration, testing everything, coordinating deploys, and hoping nothing breaks. The cost is so high that you pay the 300% increase anyway. That's vendor lock-in. And if you're not thinking about it before you integrate, you're setting a trap for your future self. What Lock-In Actually Looks Like Lock-in isn't a single thing. It's a spectrum. Low lock-in: Switching providers takes a day or two. Change some API calls, update credentials, run tests, deploy. Done. Medium lock-in: Switching takes a week or two. Different request formats require code changes. Different response structures require updating how you process d