A lot of time, research and money has gone into feeding those preferences and laziness. The patterns to create habit forming products are well known - even books about it http://amzn.to/1PU95Fp
There probably needs to a category of consumer software where the argument "but you could always use an alternative" should not apply, when evaluating monopolies. Once you have network effects for example, you have the foundations for a monopoly. WhatsApp is probably a monopoly by now, for example: if all you're friends are using it, you don't really have a choice, even though there are alternatives.
There probably needs to a category of consumer software where the argument "but you could always use an alternative" should not apply, when evaluating monopolies. Once you have network effects for example, you have the foundations for a monopoly. WhatsApp is probably a monopoly by now, for example: if all you're friends are using it, you don't really have a choice, even though there are alternatives.