After the payment for a project (e.g., a website built by DeepAgent) is made and the "compute credits" are consumed, what specific, non-negotiable restrictions prevent the customer from accessing the source code or a fully editable backend to update, modify, or add their own custom details? (This directly addresses the core concern about being locked out of the project's ownership/editability). 

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The question of why a customer, after paying for a project like a website built by an AI agent (e.g., DeepAgent) and consuming "compute credits," is unable to access the source code or a fully editable backend is one of Vendor Lock-in by design.

The restrictions are not arbitrary technical oversights; they are a direct, deliberate result of the AI company's core business model, intellectual property strategy, and the intrinsic nature of the Generative AI technology itself.

These restrictions are non-negotiable because dismantling them would fundamentally destroy the AI vendor's competitive advantage and recurring revenue stream.

The following points detail the specific, non-negotiable restrictions preventing full ownership and editability:

1. The Intellectual Property and Licensing Citadel

The single most significant barrier is the legal and technical protection of the vendor's core assets, which are inextricably bundled with the customer's site.

A. Proprietary Generative Architecture (The “Black Box”)

The AI vendor's value lies not in the static website output, but in the sophisticated, multi-layered agent framework—the "DeepAgent."

• Trade Secret Protection: The sequence of prompts, the custom-trained models, the proprietary sub-agents, the planning tools, and the internal file system used to construct the site are all high-value trade secrets. Exposing the raw source code would allow a rival or a highly technical customer to "reverse-engineer" the agent's workflow, compromising the vendor's competitive edge.

• The Code-Generation Engine: The code generated by the agent is often interwoven with calls to the vendor's own proprietary libraries, APIs, and runtime environments. This is a deliberate "software glue" that makes the code non-portable. The source code will not run standalone. Trying to edit the code outside the vendor's platform would immediately break these dependencies, rendering the entire project useless.

B. The Evolved License Model: Service, Not Software

The customer is purchasing a service (the generation and hosting of the final asset), not a perpetual, transferable software license.

• The "Output License" Trap: The customer's contract grants them a license only to the final, compiled output (the visual front-end and functional website) and the right to use it on the vendor's platform. It explicitly excludes the license to the underlying source code.

• No Source Code Warranty: The vendor’s terms will invariably state that the source code is not provided and is subject to the vendor’s exclusive intellectual property rights. To grant the source code would force the vendor to deal with complex copyleft license risks (e.g., GPL), as the AI models are trained on billions of lines of code, some of which may carry restrictive open-source licenses that demand any derivative work also be open-sourced. The vendor will refuse to take this risk.

2. Technical Interdependence and Deployment Complexity

The site's functionality is not a simple, self-contained set of files; it is dependent on the vendor's specialized infrastructure, making it technically non-transferable.

A. The Custom Backend and Database Abstraction

Modern websites, especially those built by AI, rely on a managed backend system.

• Platform Dependencies: The AI-built site’s "fully editable backend" is often a GUI abstraction running within the vendor's proprietary Content Management System (CMS) or platform. This GUI provides a simplified interface for minor text and image changes. The underlying business logic, database structure, and all custom features are hard-coded in the source that relies on the vendor's infrastructure.

• The Compute Credit Link: The consumed "compute credits" paid for the resource-intensive, one-time generation process. They did not purchase the perpetual, custom-configured cloud infrastructure (servers, load balancers, database instances) the site runs on. This infrastructure is inseparable from the vendor's managed service, and the only way to retain editability is to continue paying the monthly hosting/service fee.

B. Security and Maintenance Delegation

The vendor locks the customer out for the sake of the platform's integrity and to simplify its own maintenance pipeline.

• The Security Liability Shield: AI-generated code, while functional, is known to sometimes contain subtle security vulnerabilities, such as insecure defaults or unvetted dependencies. By keeping the code in a closed ecosystem, the vendor retains control, allowing them to remotely and automatically patch and update all generated sites simultaneously. If customers had full source access, they could introduce a security flaw that would immediately become the vendor's support liability, or, worse, compromise the vendor's shared infrastructure.

• Continuous Improvement Pipeline: The vendor constantly updates its AI model to generate better, faster, and more secure code. This requires the live sites to be easily updatable. Locking the customer out of the core source code ensures that the vendor can push mandatory, platform-wide updates without having to merge changes into thousands of independently modified customer repos. Full source access would break this essential continuous delivery model.

3. The Business and Economic Imperative (The Lock-In)

The restrictions exist because they form the foundational pillars of the vendor's long-term business strategy: maximizing Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) through indispensable reliance.

A. The Control of Future Customization and Feature Parity

The inability to modify the core source code forces the customer into a permanent cycle of reliance.

• Mandatory Repurchase of Development: If the customer needs to add a new custom feature (e.g., a unique inventory system or a new payment gateway), they cannot hire an external developer to modify the code they don't own. They are forced to return to the DeepAgent platform and pay for another generation cycle (consuming more "compute credits") or purchase a premium add-on built by the vendor. The vendor monopolizes all future development work on the customer’s project.

• Erosion of Custom Details: Over time, the customer's custom details or features become part of the vendor's proprietary system, making the cost of migrating the whole site exponentially higher. The customer's custom content is portable, but their custom functionality is permanently locked into the DeepAgent platform.

B. Preventing Platform Attrition (The "Hotel California" Model)

Vendor lock-in is the commercial mechanism that turns a one-time project payment into a recurring annuity.

• High Exit Barrier: By denying the source code, the vendor creates an incredibly high barrier to exit. If the customer becomes dissatisfied with the service or pricing, they cannot simply download their files and move to a cheaper host or an independent developer. They must pay a human developer to rebuild the entire site from scratch using the non-editable final output as a template. The cost, time, and risk of this migration are usually prohibitively high, compelling the customer to stay with the original vendor—a critical, non-negotiable restriction for the AI company's financial stability.

In conclusion, the restriction on accessing source code is the central contract of the AI-as-a-Service model. The customer pays for a generated product and its managed service, but in exchange, they surrender the freedom of full ownership and independent modification. This is not a bug; it is the most crucial, protected feature of the AI vendor's long-term business plan.