User-innovation has in recent years been indentified as an important economic phenomenon. While the flourishing research into this area has highlighted the role that users can play in generating innovations, a study of the barriers that these have to overcome for this purpose has so far been lacking. In this paper we will attempt to fill this gap by discussing various factors that can prevent users from being able to innovate. It is argued that such barriers are progressing, potentially indicating that a paradigm change may be imminent.