«Суверенная зависимость»: механизмы удержания в российских цифровых экосистемах

Социологические исследования. 2026. № 8. С. 92–105.

Stupitskiy A.

The classical theory of platforms describes user dependency on digital ecosystems as a

rational economic choice: users stay because it is convenient and switching is costly. But what happens

when there is nowhere to switch — not because alternatives are less convenient, but because the state

has eliminated them? This article introduces the concept of “sovereign lock-in” to describe a regime in

which market-based retention mechanisms and state digital sovereignty policy mutually reinforce one

another. Drawing on content analysis of corporate documents, industry reports, and regulatory materials

across five major Russian digital ecosystems — Sber, Yandex, VK, MTS, and T-Bank — covering the period

2020–2026, the study identifies three mechanisms of user dependency and four dimensions of partner

dependency. The analysis shows that after 2022, as a result of sanctions, the departure of international

platforms, and the introduction of “white lists” for critical digital infrastructure, the nature of lock-in

changed qualitatively: from preferential to structural. Theoretically, the article bridges platform economics,

infrastructure studies, and the sociology of markets to argue that Russia represents the clearest case

of “sovereign lock-in” among major economies — one in which ecosystem companies are not merely

passive beneficiaries of digital sovereignty policy, but active co-authors of the institutional environment

that sustains their dominance. The concept of “sovereign lock-in” fills a theoretical gap left by Western

platform theory and offers a generalizable framework for analyzing digital ecosystems under managed-

internet regimes.

Keywords: сетевые эффекты, Network effects, digital sovereignty, цифровые экосистемы, Platform Economy, маркетплейсы, цифровой суверенитет, digital ecosystems, marketplaces, импортозамещение программного обеспечения, платформенный капитализм, sovereign lock-in, partner dependency, платформенная зависимость, партнерская зависимость, «sovereign lock-in»

Publication based on the results of: Dynamics of Consumer, Financial and Labor Behavior in Russians under the New Geopolitical Conditions (2025)