Loyalty Tests — Real Life

The switch from “ownership that you purchase” to “access that you subscribe to” overturns many conventions. Ownership is casual, fickle. If something better comes along, grab it. A subscription, on the other hand, gushes a never-ending stream of updates, issues, and versions that force a constant interaction between the producer and the consumer. I

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True loyalty is emotional and irrational, and often at odds with our survival instinct. To achieve it, brands are better off with membership programs than the point schemes. Figuring out a good membership scenario is even more important today with a proliferation of subscription models, private chat rooms, and an ever-increasing costs of paid socia... See more

Transactional businesses are good. Subscriptions are a recurring revenue stream where users decide that they want your product—in this case, content—and then continue to pay for it so long as the content is providing them with the information and/or entertainment that they want.

All in all, real positional scarcity businesses take time to develop, especially loyalty businesses that are difficult to get off the ground before a retail or consumption environment is fully understood. But I’ll leave with this thought: as the mobile internet, e-commerce, and the transformation of retail continues onward, I think there’s an incre... See more

The problem for consumers in the Passion Economy is that there is no opportunity to own assets. Everything is still subscription-based. Given that readers and listeners act as marketing channel for creators, it makes sense for them to have some skin-in-the-game.

The shift away from traditional subscriptions will quicken pace, driven by the proliferation of on-demand solutions across all areas of modern life. Categories like content consumption (Netflix, Spotify), Travel (Uber, Lime), and food delivery (Deliveroo, DoorDash) are creating an atmosphere on everything on our terms, at all times. These category-... See more