Cognitive Scaffold

Preparing your thinking workspace

arrow_back_ios_new
MENTAL MODEL · M0742

Data Gravity

Data Gravity
TechnicalHigh supportPhysics
Included
account_tree

Version 1.0.0 · Updated 2026-07-30

CORE DEFINITION

Proposed by Dave McCrory. Data is like an object with mass; the more data, the greater the gravity. As data accumulates, applications, services, and computing power are inevitably attracted to where the data resides, making migration increasingly difficult.

SCAFFOLDING EFFECT

psychology

Reduce cognitive load

- Lock-in effect: explains why cloud vendors compete for data entry points. Once your core data is on a platform, it's hard to leave (egress costs are high). This is a physical law of the digital age.

anchor

Anchor fast decisions

Dave McCrory proposed: the more data, the more it attracts applications, services, and computing power to cluster around it, forming a lock-in similar to gravity. It explains the centralization of cloud and data.

MINIMUM ACTION

In progress 0/1

Practice this model in one real situation:

Check to track your progress (stored locally)
Learning progress0%
account_treeGenealogyexpand_more
menu_bookReferencesexpand_more

Source support: Explicit

  • link
    en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DataGravityZH · Explicit
    verified

RELATED MODELS

Related model

Allee Effect

Positive density dependence in which average individual fitness or per-capita population growth increases with population size or density over a given range.

arrow_forwardRelated model

Second Law of Thermodynamics

The second law of thermodynamics is one of the four fundamental laws of thermodynamics, stating the irreversibility of thermodynamic processes—isolated systems spontaneously evolve toward thermodynamic equilibrium, the state of maximum entropy. Similarly, a perpetual motion machine of the second kind is impossible. The history of this law can be traced back to Nicolas Carnot's research on the efficiency of heat engines and his Carnot theorem proposed in 1824.

arrow_forwardRelated model

QWERTY Effect

The QWERTY effect is a proposed psycholinguistic phenomenon in which the location of letters on a QWERTY keyboard is statistically associated with the perceived emotional meaning, or valence, of the words containing those letters. In its original formulation, words containing relatively more letters…

arrow_forward