The Membership

The Book-of-the-Month Club, founded in 1926, began by having members choose a title from a list each month — and did badly. Too many returns, too many cancellations. So it switched: unless you say no within two weeks, the book comes automatically. The negative option was not part of the original design; it was a pivot out of trouble. Membership went from 4,000 at the founding to 550,000 by 1946. The convenience of continuing, and the difficulty of stopping — both the light and the shadow of today's subscriptions have their prototype here. And the purest present-day form of this model is Costco (1983). In fiscal 2024 its membership fees came to $4.8 billion — more than half of its $9.28 billion operating income — while the goods turn over at razor-thin prices. «The store is a buying agent for its members»: the fee line of the accounts says it outright. Renewal runs at about ninety per cent. Amazon Prime (2005) re-braided this membership bond into a bundle of delivery and streaming.