I was reviewing my gym membership bill last week when it hit me: my gym makes more money when I don't show up.

Think about it. They've sold memberships to 3,000 people for a facility that can handle maybe 200 at peak times. If everyone actually used their membership, the gym would collapse under demand. Their profit model literally depends on customer failure.

This got me thinking about a question I use to evaluate any business: What happens to your revenue when your customer achieves their goal completely?

The answer reveals whether you're building for partnership or predation.

The Yunus Revelation

Muhammad Yunus faced this challenge when founding Grameen Bank. Traditional short-term lenders claimed "poor people can't repay loans." But Yunus suspected the structure was broken, not the people.

Here's the brilliant part: he didn't just lend to different customers. He redesigned the incentive structure entirely.

In standard short-term lending:

Revenue comes from interest, fees, and penalties
Rollovers and extensions generate additional charges
The average customer pays more in fees than they originally borrowed
Customer financial distress becomes a profit centre

Grameen flipped this:

Groups of 5 women form lending circles
Sequential lending—if one defaults, nobody else gets capital
Weekly meetings with financial education built in
Bank only grows when borrowers succeed and repay

Result: 97% repayment rates. Higher than Chase Manhattan serving millionaires.

This wasn't charity. It was alignment engineering. Grameen literally cannot profit unless borrowers thrive.

When Failure Becomes the Feature

The gym model isn't unique. Most subscription businesses have a dirty secret: their best customers are the ones who pay but never consume.

Netflix actually wants you to binge-watch. Their model aligns—more viewing means better recommendations means higher retention. But imagine if Netflix charged per hour watched. Suddenly they'd have incentives to make shows longer and less satisfying.

Software-as-a-Service often falls into this trap. I've seen "customer success" teams whose real job is preventing cancellations, not enabling success. Their metrics reward keeping customers subscribed regardless of value delivered.

The tell-tale sign: when a company measures engagement but not outcomes.

Rolls-Royce: The Million-Pound Alignment

Rolls-Royce discovered something fascinating when they shifted from selling jet engines to selling "Power by the Hour."

Under the old model:

Revenue came from engine sales plus maintenance contracts
When engines broke down, Rolls-Royce earned repair fees
Airlines bore the cost of delays and cancellations
Reliability was someone else's problem

Under Power by the Hour:

Airlines pay per flying hour, regardless of maintenance
Rolls-Royce owns the engines and handles all repairs
When engines fail, Rolls-Royce loses money directly
Reliability becomes Rolls-Royce's competitive advantage

The result? They now invest millions in predictive maintenance systems because unreliable engines cost them money. Airlines get 98%+ uptime. Everyone wins.

Except this isn't "everyone wins" platitudes—it's structural inevitability. The incentives make it impossible for Rolls-Royce to succeed without delivering exceptional reliability.

The Alignment Audit

Here's how to test any business model for true alignment:

The Success Scenario: If your customer achieves their goal perfectly and completely, what happens to your revenue? Does it increase, decrease, or disappear?

The Failure Scenario: If your customer struggles or fails entirely, do you make more or less money?

The Dependency Test: What are you actually selling—solutions or dependencies?

Most businesses fail the third test spectacularly. Drug dealers and subscription software have more in common than either would admit.

The Instagram Trap

Social media platforms represent perhaps the most sophisticated misalignment in history. They optimise for "engagement"—but what does engagement actually measure?

Time spent scrolling. Comments arguing. Content that triggers emotional responses.

Not: "Did users accomplish something meaningful?" or "Are users happier after using our product?"

The platforms profit from attention, regardless of whether that attention creates value. In fact, controversy and anxiety often drive more engagement than genuine satisfaction.

This creates what I call the engagement paradox: the metrics that drive business success actively undermine user wellbeing.

Building for Partnership

True alignment isn't about noble intentions—it's about structural design. When Stripe processes payments, they earn a percentage of transaction volume. Their success is literally tied to merchant success. They cannot grow without helping their customers grow.

When Epic Games takes a 30% cut of game sales (versus Apple's traditional 30%), they're not being generous—they're aligning incentives. Epic only earns when developers succeed. This drives them to build better tools, fairer policies, and more effective distribution.

The pattern isn't charity. It's enlightened self-interest made systematic.

The best business models don't just avoid conflicts of interest—they make conflicts impossible. When the only way you can win is by helping others win, alignment becomes inevitable.

Aligned Interests: When They Win, You Win