Cognitive Scaffold

Preparing your thinking workspace

arrow_back_ios_new
MENTAL MODEL · M4443

Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish / EEE

Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish / EEE
CultureHigh supportHistory
Included
account_tree

Updated 2026-08-02

Loading revision record…

INTRODUCTION

English translation pending.

CORE DEFINITION

A phrase describing a three-step pattern. A firm first embraces an existing open standard to gain users with low switching costs, then extends it with proprietary features that break compatibility, and finally uses its market position to make the original standard irrelevant. The pattern turns openness into a route to lock-in rather than a commitment to interoperability.

SCAFFOLDING EFFECT

psychology

Reduce cognitive load

- Read the extension: ask whether a compatible feature breaks interoperability with the open standard - Price the lock-in: estimate what it will cost to leave once your workflows depend on proprietary features - Keep an exit: maintain support for the open standard so you retain a migration path

anchor

Anchor fast decisions

Adopting the standard gives the firm access to an existing user base without the cost of building one. Proprietary extensions then create features competitors cannot match while remaining nominally compatible, so users migrate for the features and become dependent. Once dependence is established, withdrawing support for the standard converts market share into control over the standard itself.

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/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguishZH · 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

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_forwardRelated model

Predatory Pricing

Predatory pricing, also known as price slashing, is a commercial pricing strategy which involves reducing the retail prices to a level lower than competitors to eliminate competition. Selling at lower prices than a competitor is known as undercutting. This is where an industry dominant firm with sizable market power will deliberately reduce the prices of a product or service to loss-making levels.

arrow_forward