Everything is becoming a subscription. Your software, your email, your website, and now your AI. Every time you say “yes” to a new online service, you rent one more piece of your company — and you own one piece less. Delegating your IT should never mean losing it. At Ezohiko, we build solutions that belong to you: if one day you no longer want us, you leave with everything. That’s what freedom looks like.
THE TRAP
Most small businesses no longer own much of their IT. The domain name sits with the provider, the data lives in a SaaS, the servers are rented, the licences expire the moment you stop paying. The day you want to switch — or simply take back control — you discover you’re captive. It’s not bad luck. It’s the model.
Lock-in isn’t a bug. It’s the business model.
Think of Netflix. At launch in 2011, the standard plan cost $7.99. Today it’s over $20 — more than 125% higher, roughly three times inflation. And with every hike, what could you do about it? Nothing. You own nothing: you rent access, and you swallow every increase because there’s no real alternative.
It’s not just streaming. Microsoft 365 Personal went from €69 to €99.99 a year in 2025 (+30 to 43%), with Copilot AI billed by default — the AI-free “Classic” option at the old price is hidden away in the settings. Google Workspace raised its prices by 17 to 22% the same year. When you’re captive, a price increase isn’t a negotiation. It’s a notification.
And AI will follow the same path, only worse. The major generative-AI services are currently sold at a loss to capture the market: today’s price is not tomorrow’s price. The mechanism is always the same: the subscription is sold to you as convenience, but the cost of leaving rises every month. The deeper you’re in, the more expensive it is to get out — and the more you’re forced to accept the hikes.
Traditional managed IT reproduces the same trap: it’s handled “for you”, but mostly “instead of you”. The access, the configurations, the knowledge of your system all stay with the provider. The day the relationship ends, you walk away with very little. Delegate, yes. Be dispossessed, no.
What you actually lose
Your data
Locked inside an online service, with limited or paid export. Your data becomes the hostage that stops you from leaving.
Your domain name
Too often registered in the provider’s name. Your address, your online identity — and you don’t even own it.
Your infrastructure
Rented, never yours. You pay every month for something you’ll never own, and which disappears the day you stop.
Your access & identities
The admin accounts sit with a third party. Without them, you can’t decide, migrate, or take back control of your own system.
AI: the new frontier of dependence
Everyone is rushing to online AI. A subscription here, an assistant there, and within months your most sensitive data is feeding services whose model, hosting and future pricing you don’t control. The subscriptions pile up, the costs climb, and dependence sets in — without anyone ever really deciding it.
Let’s be clear: the cloud and AI are not the enemy. They’re remarkable tools. The enemy is imposed captivity: using these tools without ever keeping control of your data or the ability to leave. The right question isn’t “cloud or not”, it’s “who holds the key?”.
THE TEST
Ask yourself one question: if you had to leave all your providers tomorrow, what would be left that’s yours? Your domain, your data, your servers, your access? If the answer scares you, you’re not a customer. You’re captive.
Our stance: we build what belongs to you
At Ezohiko, we do the opposite of the captive model. Where it makes sense, we favour open solutions (open source, Proxmox virtualisation, hosting on accounts that are yours). We document everything, we hand you the access, and we design from day one for the possibility of leaving.
The result: if one day you no longer want to work with us, you leave with everything — domain, data, servers, configurations. You don’t owe us your freedom. In our view, it’s the only honest way to delegate: you keep ownership, we bring the expertise.
REVERSIBILITY
Reversibility isn’t a clause hidden at the bottom of a contract. It’s a design principle: everything we put in place must be able to be taken over, by you or by someone else, without us. It’s how we are the craftsman of your trust.
Frequently asked questions
What is vendor lock-in?
It’s the situation where switching provider or tool becomes so costly or complicated that you give up. Hard-to-export data, a domain name held by a third party, closed formats, out-of-reach admin access: so many chains tying you to a supplier, even an unsatisfactory one — and forcing you to accept every price increase.
Should you ban the cloud and subscriptions?
No. The cloud and subscriptions have real benefits. The problem isn’t the tool, it’s imposed dependence. The goal is to use them while keeping control of your data and the ability to leave — not to forbid everything.
How do I know if my company is captive?
Take the test: list your domain name, your data, your servers and your admin accounts, and ask who really owns them. If you can’t retrieve everything and leave within a few days, you’re dependent.
Is open source less reliable?
On the contrary, it’s often more durable: no licence to expire, open standards, and the freedom to have the solution taken over by whoever you choose. Properly implemented and maintained, open source delivers reliability and independence.
Let’s discuss your situation.
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