Freemium

In many ways, we're still relying on frameworks from the last golden age of tech, when the internet was young and people were excited about downloading new apps. That was the era when freemium fueled rapid scale.

But today, people have far less capacity—or interest—for freemium. You're essentially paying for their attention and for space on their screens, and both have become increasingly expensive.

The old model was "go free and spread wide." Now the priority might be to go deep and become indispensable. That often means considering models that are paid from the start—and not just paid, but consultative, hands-on, and even unscalable in the early stages.

Why should a customer download your app and simply hope it works? The reality is that you now need to put in real effort to consultatively implement your technology, even if it's "just an app."