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# Captive customers always leave
- URL: https://adjacent.media/signals/captive-customers-always-leave/
- Published: 2026-07-11T16:08:59.000Z
- Updated: 2026-07-11T16:08:59.000Z
- Description: Seth Godin’s argument—that businesses treating customers as locked-in inevitably lose them—tracks a real economic shift: switching costs have collapsed for digital services, and genuine alternatives proliferate.
- Author: Jonathan Greene
- Tags: #signal, theme-consumer, attention economy, platform dynamics, customer retention

Source: [Seth's Blog](https://seths.blog/2026/07/a-captive-audience/?ref=adjacent.media)

Seth Godin's argument—that businesses treating customers as locked-in inevitably lose them—tracks a real economic shift: switching costs have collapsed for digital services, and genuine alternatives proliferate. When airlines overbookhed, charged for baggage, and assumed passengers had no choice, Southwest and budget carriers built billion-dollar businesses on the opposite premise. The new consumer landscape punishes the assumption of captivity because distribution, information, and choice are abundant. Brands that design around retention through friction rather than genuine preference are essentially planning their own disruption.