SBMUpdated 23 Oct 2026
Early version, updated weekly. Every claim is dated and sourced. Think something is wrong? Dispute it.
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I set strategy

Is my industry’s business model on the retiring side, and what replaces it?

Retiring models and where their value is going Rung 0 · 10 models

ModelRungFamilyLoopRegisterStateCosEvidenceLast
Per-seat software pricingR0 Fights toward Selling the finished workcost-curve RetiringUnder pressure 20A 2B2026-04-02
Search-referral publishingR0 Fights toward Owning the scarce humancontrol-point RetiringDeclining 12A 1B2025-10-27
Question-and-answer sitesR0 Fights toward Owning the scarce humannetwork RetiringDeclining 11A 0B2025-10-27
Offshore contact-center laborR0 Fights toward Selling the finished workcost-curve RetiringDeclining 21A 1B2026-06-29
Per-word human translationR0 Fights toward Selling the finished workcost-curve RetiringDeclining 11A 0B2025
Commodity freelance gigsR0 Fights toward Selling the finished workcost-curve RetiringUnder pressure 10A 1B2025-09-15
Stock media licensingR0 Fights toward Selling abundancehuman-signal RetiringUnder pressure 12A 0B2026-03-16
Ten-blue-links search advertisingR0 Fights toward Owning the choke pointscontrol-point RetiringEarly pressure 21A 1B2025-Q3
Headcount-billed IT servicesR0 Fights toward Selling the finished workcost-curve RetiringWatch 10A 1B2025-10-09
The billable hour and the pyramidR0 Fights toward Selling the finished worklearning RetiringWatch 10A 1B2025-05-29

Where the value lands instead

Selling abundance 1 retiring toward it: Stock media licensing replaced by: Tokens as the unit of sale · Tiered intelligence subscriptions
Selling the finished work 6 retiring toward it: Per-seat software pricing · Offshore contact-center labor · Per-word human translation · Commodity freelance gigs · Headcount-billed IT services · The billable hour and the pyramid replaced by: Pay per outcome · Vertical AI priced by the work · Discovery paid by milestone · AI roll-ups of services firms
Owning the scarce human 2 retiring toward it: Search-referral publishing · Question-and-answer sites replaced by: Expert data marketplaces · Paid AI access to content
Owning the choke points 1 retiring toward it: Ten-blue-links search advertising replaced by: Agentic checkout · AI glasses · Open weights with paid layers · Open protocols as commons

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