The Razors-and-Blades Myth(s) - The story of Gillette

The razors-and-blades model, which name and origin is contributed to Gillette, is one of the most common examples to introduce the idea of a business model. It is also often cited as one of the archetypical business models next to others like free or long-tail.

In a working paper, Randal Picker discusses the origin of Gillette's model and argues that there are some peculiar aspects that are hard to explain which are often left out in the popular story about the model.