For two decades the monetization road was straight and well paved. It called for an elegant sedan: a clean product portfolio with a single monetization model like good/better/best packages priced per user per month.
Then AI broke the road. Sticking with the sedan leads to Blockbuster's fate, but there is no new vehicle to switch into immediately. So you need to keep the old one moving while you build the one that handles the terrain ahead.
The problem is your customer can't straddle two vehicles. They live in one product and one contract, and what they need from you is to keep going. Holding old and new together so the customer sees one experience — in the product and in the pricing — is the hardest part of the job.
The old sedan can't do that. It was built for a road that no longer exists, and it was never meant to be rebuilt en route. What this calls for is a rally car: rougher than the sedan, less elegant, and built so the crew can tear into it between stages, against a clock, without ever leaving the race.
For product, that means one platform coherent enough that the customer never stumbles into the seam between what you sold last year and what you are building now. For pricing, that means a model that is temporary on purpose — good enough for this stretch of road and designed to be re-tuned for the next one.
Stop chasing the next-generation sedan. Embrace the rough, adaptable rally car. It's what will keep you in the race through a stretch of rocky roads.
