Club Goods

Goods that are excludable (you can prevent non-payers from accessing them) but non-rivalrous (one person's consumption doesn't diminish another's). Movie theaters, subscription services, private golf courses, and gated online communities are all club goods. The economic model underlying every membership business: charge for access to something that doesn't deplete with use. Club goods exist between pure private goods (excludable and rivalrous) and public goods (non-excludable and non-rivalrous).

When to use it

When designing subscription or membership business models; when evaluating whether a product is naturally a club good, private good, or public good; when pricing excludable services; when community or content businesses face scaling decisions.

How it can help

If you're building a membership, subscription, or community business, you're selling a club good. The key strategic questions: How do you make it excludable (paywall, membership requirements)? How do you prevent it from becoming rivalrous (server capacity, community quality as it scales)? The most successful club goods maintain quality at scale—Netflix at 200 million subscribers is still non-rivalrous because streaming one show doesn't prevent another person from streaming.