Companion instrument

The Gate Cycle

Every gate produces products that help people live inside it and products that help them get around it. Roads turn into gates when they concentrate, lock users in, hold the only root of trust, and give their operator discretion. Set the market conditions, then design your own road and see how long it stays one.

Market conditions

Years of adoption How long each product has been compounding its network effects.

Regulatory pressure Appeal rights, refusal reasons, oversight of operator decisions. Reduces how much discretion bites.

Portability mandate Data, reputation and agent state must be exportable, which cuts switching costs for every product.

Federation mandate Trust and identity must be checkable across independent operators. Caps how far any one operator can concentrate.

Design your road

Network effects How much more valuable it gets as more people use the same instance.

Switching cost How much accumulated data, reputation or integration stays behind if a user leaves.

Operator discretion How many judgment calls the operator makes about who passes, beyond what the spec defines.

Open spec with patent grants

Federated trust roots

AI-era roads that have become gates

AI-era products charging tolls

Years until your road becomes a gate

Products by gate score · marker shows the gate line

Product	Concentration	Gate score	Status

Gate score over 15 years

The highlighted line is the product selected in the table. Dotted lines are historical calibration cases. The thick dashed line is your road.

Products by gate score · marker shows the gate line

Gate score over 15 years

Why it gates