This study examines how digital platform organizations can overcome subscription fatigue by transforming transactional relationships into value co-creation systems that enhance customer lifetime value and competitive advantage.
The study employs a multi-source comparative analysis integrating financial performance data from 28 global digital media organizations, leading consultancy insights, and 12 case studies across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. Exploratory and theory-building rather than hypothesis-testing, it relies exclusively on secondary and case-based evidence, supplemented by insights from Egypt’s digital media market.
Relationship-centered platforms outperform transactional subscription models, generating stronger customer commitment, trust and participatory engagement. Organizations integrating relationship marketing, value co-creation and platform economics achieve higher retention, lifetime value and network effects. Subscription fatigue diminishes when customers perceive multidimensional value, including community belonging, identity reinforcement and collaborative participation, beyond functional utility.
Reliance on secondary and case-based data may constrain generalizability. Future research should employ longitudinal empirical designs to validate the sustainable value exchange framework (SVEF) across industries and cultural contexts.
Managers should shift from product-centric subscription models to relationship orchestration strategies that cultivate community participation and multidimensional value, supporting sustainable revenue, reducing churn and creating competitive advantage.
This research proposes the SVEF, an integrative conceptual framework grounded in multi-source industry analysis rather than standalone empirical research. Synthesizing relationship marketing theory, service-dominant logic, platform economics and consumer behavior research, the SVEF reconceptualizes customer relationships as orchestrated networks of co-created value, bridging isolated theoretical domains into a unified strategic logic for subscription fatigue in platform-mediated markets.
