Consumption-based, aka usage-based, pricing is hardly new. Anyone with an electricity, gas, or water bill knows that the amount you pay each month varies depending on your usage. More recently, disruptive companies have pushed other industries (transportation, hospitality, communications, and insurance) to transform by providing usage-based products and services via software applications. As consumers, we see this all around us, when we hail an Uber or choose a short-term rental on AirBnB.

When I began working at Qlik nearly seven years ago, it was fairly common for us to end our first meeting with a Federal agency with their team saying: “We need this.