Glossary / Customer lifetime value (CLV)
Customer lifetime value (CLV)
The total profit a customer generates over the whole relationship with a brand. It justifies free updates and support that pay off in repeat purchases rather than a single sale.
Introduced in Chapter 13 — Lean Hardware of Tangibles.
Related terms
- Total cost of ownership (TCO) — The full lifetime cost of owning a device — service, logistics, downtime, support — not just its purchase price.
- Conspicuous consumption — Buying and displaying goods to signal taste, status, and belonging — Thorstein Veblen's 1899 term, which the book ties to premium packaging and the unboxing moment.
- Cyber Resilience Act — The EU regulation setting baseline security requirements for connected products as a condition of market access.
- Compute Locator — A companion tool that matches each device workload to edge, hub, or cloud by weighing latency, bandwidth, cost, and battery life.