Our operations and financial performance depend in part on worldwide economic conditions and the impact these conditions have on levels of spending on products and solutions for network security, performance, and reliability. Our business depends on the overall demand for these products and on the economic health and general willingness of our current and prospective customers to purchase our products.
The United States, Europe, and the United Kingdom have recently experienced historically high levels of inflation. Although inflation levels have begun to decrease in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Eurozone, the U.S. Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, and the Bank of England have raised, and may continue to raise or maintain, high interest rates and may implement fiscal policy interventions. Even if these interventions lower inflation, they may also reduce economic growth rates, create a recession, and result in other similar or unexpected effects. For example, the decrease in values of government-issued securities resulting from higher interest rates may have played a significant role in the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank during the first quarter of 2023, the circumstances resulting in the UBS takeover of Credit Suisse during the second quarter of 2023, and generalized uncertainty confronting a number of other financial institutions.
Downturns in economic conditions — including inflation, rising interest rates, reductions in business confidence and activity, the curtailment of government or corporate spending, volatile financial markets, the actual or perceived failure or financial difficulties of additional financial institutions, ongoing supply chain disruptions, and reduced demand for products and services across a variety of industries — have in the past and may in the future affect our business and our current and prospective customers and their industries adversely. For example, during an economic downturn, our current and prospective customers may suffer from reduced operating budgets. Some of our paying customers may view a subscription to our products as a discretionary purchase and may reduce their discretionary spending on our products or reduce or cut their budget to otherwise expand their subscriptions to our products. Moreover, our competitors may respond to market conditions by lowering prices and attempting to lure away our customers.
Further, the sales cycle for new customers of our technology and services could lengthen in the future as a result of challenging macroeconomic conditions, resulting in a potentially longer delay between increasing operating expenses and the generation of corresponding revenue, if any. For example, potentially as a result of these various macroeconomic impacts on our customers, since the first half of 2022, we periodically have experienced lengthening of the average sales cycles for certain types of customers and sales, slowdowns in our pipeline of potential new customers and in the rate of converting sales pipeline opportunities into new sales, increases in average days sales outstanding, higher levels of churn in our paying customer base (which is when any of our paying customers cease to be a paying customer for any reason, including any pay-as-you-go customer converting to a free subscription plan), and lengthening of the timing of payment from some of our customers, all of which may have contributed to a slowdown in our revenue growth over that period (including with respect to new customers). We may also experience increases in new and existing customers requesting concessions in terms of payment amounts and/or timing and earlier or additional termination rights in the future as the challenging macroeconomic conditions continue or worsen.
We continue to monitor economic conditions to assess possible implications to our business and to take appropriate actions in an effort to mitigate the adverse consequences of uncertainty or negative trends. However, there can be no assurances that initiatives we undertake will be sufficient or successful. If there is an economic downturn that affects our current and prospective customers, or if we are unable to address and mitigate the risks associated with any of the foregoing, our business, results of operations and financial condition could be adversely affected.