§ 01The instrument
The Black Hole Index™ is an open scientific instrument for measuring structural lock-in in digital platforms. It produces a single dimensionless number per platform — the ratio of capture pressure over escape capacity, evaluated across eleven measurable parameters.
The instrument is intentionally minimal. It does not rank value, ethics, regulation, or pricing. It reports the structural fact and leaves interpretation to the reader.
BHI draws on 70 years of economics: CES production functions from Solow (1956), switching cost theory from Farrell and Klemperer (2007), network effects from Katz and Shapiro (1985), increasing returns from Arthur (1989), and status quo bias from Samuelson and Zeckhauser (1988). The combination — a single dimensionless ratio that separates tools from traps — is the contribution.
§ 02The author
Ivan Savich — founding author and maintainer of the BHI. Based in Ukraine. Started as an underground electrician in a Donetsk coal mine, earned a Master's in Political Science, moved into banking and reached senior management (80-person team, 9 years in finance). Left everything in 2014 when war came. Started over. Learned to build software from zero — BHI, a 14-language news platform, quantitative trading systems.
§ 03Contact and links
§ 04Governance principles
- Reproducibility. The model is deterministic and public — every score recomputes from its eleven parameters. Per-parameter evidence trails do not yet exist: 1 platform of 184 carries a written rationale, and closing that gap is the current work. Methodology is open under CC BY 4.0.
- Stability before novelty. The aggregation function is versioned. Changes require documentation and historical score reissuance.
- No paid placement. No platform pays to be in, out, or higher in the index. Universe constructed by published criteria.
Public audit log
§ 05Advisory board
The BHI advisory board does not exist. Every seat is open, none has been filled, and no quarterly release or methodology change published by this project has been reviewed by such a board or peer-reviewed by anyone through it. The seats below are a standing open call and nothing more. Corrected 19 September 2026: this paragraph read “The BHI advisory board is currently being formed. Prospective members will review quarterly releases, validate methodology changes, and provide peer review”, which described a body in being and promised a peer review that has not happened. The same claim stood in a stronger form on /governance and is corrected there on the same date; a correction applied to one page and not to the identical claim on another is its own kind of failure, and this project has made that one before.
If you work in industrial organisation, competition policy, quantitative finance, or econometric measurement: ivan.savich@blackholeindex.com
§ 06How to engage
- Read. Every release ships with methodology, validation, and the working paper. → Paper
- Probe. The Observatory is a live calculator; score any platform in your browser. → Observatory
- Collaborate. The inter-rater reliability study is pre-declared, its protocol and cohort frozen by digest before execution; recruitment is deferred, not cancelled. → Contact
- A structural lock-in measurement instrument
- A dimensionless ratio (like Reynolds or Sharpe)
- Applicable to AI, finance, crypto, SaaS
- Open methodology, open formula
- A product quality score
- A user satisfaction metric
- A financial recommendation
- A prediction of price movements