In the old days, when you wanted a piece of software, you paid up front for a license that allowed you to use it forever. In other words, you pretty much owned it. But companies like Salesforce flipped the script with the software as a service (SaaS) model, allowing customers to pay a recurring fee for their tools, giving them greater flexibility and customization.
Now, that subscription model has expanded to everything from cloud infrastructure (Amazon Web Services) to razor shopping (Dollar Shave Club). And with the rise of coworking, we’re now seeing the subscription model expand to office leasing as well. It started with Regus, which pioneered the shared office concept for travellers two decades ago. Since then, companies like Alley, Industrious, and most famously, WeWork, have used the subscription model to give clients the same flexibility with their office spaces that they get with their software tools, with a community of like-minded tenants to boot.