How tied are you into your respective smartphone or tablet ecosystem?
So you're buying up a ton of apps on your Galaxy Nexus. Or your iPhone 4S. Or even your Lumia 710. But a couple of years go by, and you're ready to upgrade. You look at all of your options, but since you've already poured an insane amount of money into your ecosystem of choice, you just can't bring yourself to leave.
Every operating system is guilty of keeping its users locked. If I had to total up my entire spendings on the iPhone App Store, I wouldn't be surprised if it was over $250 already. I've been using an iPhone since the 3G model, so that's not too outrageous of a guess.
If I found a phone with the same build quality with the same materials (there is something amazing about glass touching your hands) running Windows Phone or Android, I would love to switch. iOS is going downhill and fast. But at the same time, I can't help but feel that I would lose money by switching to another platform: I would have to re-purchase all of my apps, which would total about what I had already spent, plus the price of the new phone.
Then again, maybe it's just me. Maybe I look at the money too closely. But I'm still curious: do you feel that you're "locked-in" to a particular app ecosystem because of how much you've already spent for apps? Would you have any reservations about switching now?
