Time's Up!

8A Renaissance: The Subscription Economy

Companies that sell products to strangers aren't going to last long in this new subscription economy.

—Tien Tzuo, founder, Zuora, author of Subscribed: Why the Subscription Model Will Be Your Company’s Future—and What to Do About It

From the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries, the Renaissance spawned some of the world's greatest authors, statesman, artists, and scientists. Global trade expanded, opening up new cultures and lands for European commerce. The Renaissance is credited with “bridging the gap between the Middle Ages and modern‐day civilization” (History.com editors n.d.).

We are living through another Renaissance in business model evolution, crossing the bridge from the traditional model constructed upon volume product and service transactions to one focused on relationships; access rather than ownership; customization of transformations rather than deliverables; continuous innovation and value creation instead of planned obsolescence; a seamless, frictionless customer experience that not only offers convenience, but also provides peace of mind, and surfaces simplicity. Welcome to the subscription economy.

Ironically, the history of the subscription business model goes back to the Renaissance, in the 1500s, when European map makers had customers who subscribed to their offerings. Newspapers and magazines also were sold on a subscription basis in seventeenth‐century Europe. Yet the current model is radically different ...