The unspoken premise here is that the only important thing about loyalty is how much it costs you compared to always using the least expensive service.

I'd like to point out that many people (myself included) complain about phenomena like the race to the bottom in mobile app prices and the death of customer service in our airlines... but then we (myself often included) make measurements like this, with loyalty rarely considered and, when it is, often derided as simply a source of extra overhead.

This post is a great example: The author happily compares these companies solely on cost, with no reference at all to quality in any way, shape, or form.

There are more dimensions to goods and services than how much you pay for them, but we too often make that not only the primary metric (by a long shot) but sometimes the only metric, and that misses all sorts of points.

Don't expect quality services to start and stay when your primary view of "loyalty" is its "cost."