Law I

Bottleneck Migration

Value moves to the most stubborn adjacent layer. Usually that is upward, as the layer below commoditises. When the scarcity is physical or institutional (compute, power, fabs, regulatory access), it moves down instead.

StandingRevised under pressure, relied on
Last tested21 Jun 2026
RevisedOnce
AppliesOver the next one to five years: where the scarcity sits now

Revised in June 2026, when the publication’s own uses of it pointed down as well as up.

Generation goes abundant; the scarce spot moves up to verification, or down to the physical layer.

Ask this of your own work

If this layer becomes abundant, where does scarcity move next?

An example

Access to AI models got easy, so the scarce work moved to what sits around the model: the traces, the evals, the contracts and the workflow integration. Generation got cheap; verification became scarce.

From The Five Laws of Durable Systems

Run it on your own work

Start with

The other 10 essays under Law I

How it could be wrong

What would break it

What would count as proof it is wrong. When a test meets the old version, the law is rewritten and the change is recorded beside it.

A field where a layer became abundant or automated and the value stayed put: the same layer kept earning its scarcity premium, and the bottleneck moved nowhere, up or down.

Reworded on 21 Jun 2026 along with the law, to count a move in either direction.

What changed, and why

21 Jun 2026 · after its own uses pointed both ways
It used to say value always moves up. It can also move down, to the physical or institutional layer, when that is where the scarcity is. Moving up is still the usual case.

The exact wording, as the framework records it

Value migrates to the most-resistant adjacent layer — usually up as lower layers commoditise, down to the physical/regulatory substrate (compute, power, fabs, access) when scarcity is physical.

The full statement

When any layer becomes abundant or automated, value and scarcity migrate to whichever adjacent layer is now most resistant to commoditisation. Usually that is the coordinating, verifying, and selecting layer above it; when the binding scarcity is physical or institutional — compute, power, fabrication, regulatory access — the locus moves down to the substrate. The bottleneck never disappears; it moves to where resistance is highest.