Glossary / Recurring revenue

Recurring revenue

Income that repeats — subscriptions, services, consumables — rather than a one-time sale. The model that offsets hardware's capital intensity.

Introduced in Chapter 7 — The Miniaturization Engine of Tangibles.

Related terms

• Data flywheel — A self-reinforcing loop in which a product's use generates data that improves the product, which attracts more use and still more data.
• Prototype — An early working build used to test design and integration.
• Right to repair — The principle, increasingly written into law, that owners should be able to fix what they bought — a counter-pressure to closed, unrepairable hardware.
• Proof of concept — An early experiment showing that a technical idea can work at all — before users, polish, or production enter the picture.