Glossary entry

Substitution Cost

Glossary entry in Measures & indicators. Definitions, checks, and evidence for Substitution Cost.

Quick takeaways

What it would take to replace a system with an alternative that meets the same obligation: staff-weeks of work, retained expertise, contractual exit terms, and elapsed time befo…

Definition

What it would take to replace a system with an alternative that meets the same obligation: staff-weeks of work, retained expertise, contractual exit terms, and elapsed time before the alternative carries production load. Measured, it is a number; assumed, it is usually wrong by an order of magnitude.

It matters because substitution cost is the hinge between a working switch and institutional reversibility, and it is the factor that dominates exposure score in mature deployments. A high and unmeasured cost is how a right of exit becomes nominal.

MeasurableStructural

Scale: Organizational · Phases: Design, Audit · Measurability: Fully measurable · Maturity: Active research

Scope
G. Measures & indicators. Metrics that track moral performance across systems.
Genealogy
Isolates the factor that converts reliability into lock-in, so Law V and Law VI can be assessed separately.

Adjacent terms

Right of Exit Institutional Reversibility Exposure Score Continuity Privilege

Related concepts

Also tagged: Measurable

Correction Capacity Dependency State Exposure Score Evaluation Layer Falsified Denominator Challenge Density

Also tagged: Structural

Ethotechnics Moral Behavior (of Systems) Ethical Load Path Ethotechnic Audit Conviviality Ethotechnic Maturity

References

Copy citation (APA/BibTeX)

Cite this glossary entry Formats: APA, MLA, Chicago, BibTeX, RIS

Version

v1.4.0

Last updated

Sep 18, 2026

DOI

Pending Zenodo deposit

APA

Ethotechnics Institute Research Team. (2026). Substitution Cost. Ethotechnics glossary. https://ethotechnics.org/glossary/substitution-cost

MLA

Ethotechnics Institute Research Team. "Substitution Cost." Ethotechnics glossary, 2026, https://ethotechnics.org/glossary/substitution-cost.

Chicago

Ethotechnics Institute Research Team. "Substitution Cost." Ethotechnics glossary. Sep 18, 2026. https://ethotechnics.org/glossary/substitution-cost.

BibTeX

@misc{glossary_substitution-cost,
  title={Substitution Cost},
  author={Ethotechnics Institute Research Team},
  year={2026},
  howpublished={Ethotechnics glossary},
  url={https://ethotechnics.org/glossary/substitution-cost},
  version={v1.4.0}
}

RIS

TY  - WEB
TI  - Substitution Cost
AU  - Ethotechnics Institute Research Team
PY  - 2026
UR  - https://ethotechnics.org/glossary/substitution-cost
ER  -

Scholarly metadata

Authorship

Contact: research@ethotechnics.org

Publication details

  • Published: Dec 3, 2025
  • Last updated: Sep 18, 2026
  • Version: v1.4.0
  • DOI: Pending Zenodo deposit

License: CC BY-SA 4.0

Credit Ethotechnics Institute, include the term title + version, and link to the glossary permalink.

Archive: Wayback Machine history

Changelog

  • v1.7.0 · 2026-09-18 — Added Non-Finality, Consequential Contradiction, and The Excluded Case, and generalized the falsified denominator into the falsified ledger — completing the five concerns and the fallibilist ground they stand on.
  • v1.6.0 · 2026-09-18 — Added Human Non-Substitutability, Safe Incompleteness, Anti-Conversion Rights, Abstention, Constitutional Debt, Discretion Migration, and Corrigibility Rent — the person-side principles, the three abstentions, and the rent concept.
  • v1.5.0 · 2026-09-18 — Added Exception Absorption, Exception Learning, Case Corrigibility, Structural Corrigibility, Institutional Learning, Corrective Debt, and the Workaround Presumption, formalizing the historical turn: reading institutions through their failure trajectories rather than their stated controls.
  • v1.4.0 · 2026-09-18 — Added Residual Complexity, Complexity Displacement, Falsified Denominator, Closure Without Remainder, Constitutional Governance, and Post-Optimization Rigor, embedding the foundational contention of burden redistribution.
  • v1.3.0 · 2026-09-11 — Added Attestation, Liability Record, Carve-Out, Delegation Chain, Composed Latency, and Silent-Harm Discovery, each bound to the standard clause that requires it.
  • v1.2.0 · 2026-09-08 — Added The Non-Conversion Principle, Exit Cost, and Jurisdictional Path Dependence, each linked to the theory essay that argues for it.
  • v1.1.0 · 2026-01-09 — Expanded scholarly metadata, operational tests, and provenance notes.
  • v1.0.0 · 2025-12-03 — Initial glossary release with stable permalinks.