Interpreting WeChat paid reading: Is content payment reliable, and how can we follow the trend?

This article starts with the paid reading service that WeChat is about to launch, and discusses in depth whether content payment is reliable, what opportunities it will bring, and how to seize this opportunity. The article is quite long and requires you to calm down and read it slowly.

On February 14, Valentine's Day , when I opened my Moments , besides being filled with dog food, I was also flooded with screenshots of IT commentator Keso's Moments - WeChat is about to launch paid reading.

Different people may look at the same event from different perspectives and have different questions in their minds. Internet practitioners are concerned about what changes paid reading will bring, or what new opportunities it will create. What the spectators may be concerned about is that in the future, you will have to pay to read an article. Hasn’t the Internet always been free? Is WeChat crazy about money?

The two questions above are different on the surface, but in essence they are the same question: " Is paid reading on WeChat reliable? " If we abstract it to a higher level, the question would be: " Is content payment reliable? What changes and opportunities will it bring? "

Therefore, this article is not only about analyzing paid reading on WeChat, but also attempts to analyze this issue from a higher level, that is, the level of content payment.

The article is structured as follows:

1. What is paid content?
2. Why launch paid content at this time?
3. What are the crises in the content payment field?

1. What is paid content?

Content payment actually omits the subject, that is, the user, or more accurately, the mobile Internet user, who pays for the content.

Therefore, our theme includes three elements: mobile Internet users, content, and payment. Before various whys come to mind, we must first think clearly about what. That is, we must first understand the three elements of users, content, and payment.

Let’s talk about users first . Chinese Internet users have always advocated the principle of free information. These users have always been accustomed to and enjoyed obtaining various kinds of information from the Internet for free. These people have always been consumers of free information.

Speaking of content , content includes videos, pictures, text, audio, etc. In terms of form, videos are divided into movies , TV shows, live broadcasts , short videos , etc. Pictures and texts are divided into magazines, newspapers, books, the Internet, etc. according to their carriers. Our focus is on analyzing content on the Internet, but in the process of analysis we will constantly think of content on other carriers.

Finally, let’s talk about payment . We have always been willing to pay for some content. For example, the oldest books are sold directly, and we are also willing to pay to subscribe to magazines and newspapers. This seems to be natural.

But on the Internet, we can search for various information, browse various websites, and check WeChat and Weibo for free, which seems to be natural.

So the question is, why are we willing to spend money on movies, magazines, and newspapers, but not on content on the Internet? Why are we starting to charge for content after always advocating free Internet? Why should I pay for information when I can get it for free? When users are used to free services, is it reliable to ask them to pay for them?

If the above questions also appear in your mind, then continue reading, and you may suddenly understand after reading the article.

Let me first put forward a point of view: information is still free, but knowledge requires payment .

The so-called content payment means "paying for knowledge." We can still obtain information on the Internet for free through search engines or various apps, but the demand is decreasing because "we know more and more, and we don't know less and less." At the same time, the time cost of obtaining information is getting higher and higher, because the amount of information is getting larger and larger, and it is becoming more and more difficult to distinguish what you want in the massive amount of information. Even if we obtain the information we want in the vast ocean, we often just "know" it, but in fact we often do not "understand" it. The so-called knowledge is the filtering and processing of information, and the output of easy-to-understand content in a structured and systematic manner.

We need this kind of knowledge-based content more and more.

2. Why launch paid content at this time?

I think the timing is right for WeChat to launch content payment now. The specific reasons will be analyzed from four perspectives: the macro environment (including social environment and Internet environment), WeChat itself, content creators, and users .

2.1 From the perspective of the overall environment

Information overload, resulting in high costs for identifying useful information

The Internet has developed for decades and has accumulated a massive amount of information, from the previous lack of information to the current information overload. There are more than 20 million public accounts on the WeChat platform alone. You can imagine how many articles are produced by WeChat public accounts every day. Various information apps, such as Toutiao , also produce a large amount of content every day. It can be said that we are drowned in a boundless ocean of information every day.

There are also various movies, videos, live broadcasts, audio, etc. Both the variety and quantity of content are huge, and when we are faced with so many choices, we also face huge anxiety.

In an era of information scarcity, how to produce and provide more information and how to easily obtain information are the core pain points; now in an era of information overload, how to filter out useless information and acquire knowledge in a timely and efficient manner has become the core pain point.

Consumption upgrade leads to increased demand for experience

As the middle class grows, consumption upgrading has become an undeniable consensus. What it brings is that users do not want information itself, but pay more attention to the added value above the information, such as a sense of identity, belonging, social currency, ritual and participation.

The Luoji Siwei community satisfies fans' sense of identity and provides social currency, thus gaining a large number of followers. Gain fan recognition by conveying values ​​such as liberalism. Social currency is conversation starters, and Luo Pang provides readers with conversation starters by interpreting a book or an idea once a week.

As the “time cost” of screening information gradually increases, the demand for high-quality information becomes stronger and stronger, and the added value of information becomes more and more important. Therefore, instead of spending so much time to obtain information in person, it is better to spend some money to enjoy "knowledge services".

The popularity of mobile payment provides payment infrastructure

As an important part of content payment, the popularity of mobile payment provides the basic conditions for payment. According to a report by CNNIC, as of December 2016, the proportion of netizens using mobile phones for online payment was 67.5%, indicating that most mobile Internet users are already using mobile payment.

The proportion of people born in the 1980s and 1990s who use mobile payment is over 90%, and this group of people is the main consumer of content, so the basic condition of mobile payment is already in place.

The improvement of the content copyright system makes the exclusivity of original works possible

WeChat has an "original" label for original public account articles, and WeChat itself has powerful comparison and calculation capabilities, which can basically guarantee the exclusivity of original articles within the WeChat system. The difficulty lies in how to ensure that these articles are not maliciously reprinted outside the WeChat system. The national laws on intellectual property protection may progress a little slowly, but as a giant in the domestic Internet, if Tencent launches paid reading, it will itself force the progress of the law. At the same time, WeChat cannot sit idly by when other websites infringe on the original articles of public accounts. After all, that is all money. In addition, there are some third-party copyright protection companies that do this, helping you monitor who is infringing your rights and then recover your losses.

Various paid content products have cultivated users' habit of paying for content

First, you become a VIP member of various jewelry websites and have to pay to watch certain videos. Then various music apps launch electronic albums and VIP memberships, as well as live broadcast rewards, various reading rewards, audio purchases, etc. These text, music, audio, and video contents were all free on the Internet before, but now these products are partially charged for, and the development is quite good. These attempts show that the general direction of content payment is feasible. The key lies in which content to charge for and how to charge for it.

The above discussion shows that it is becoming more and more realistic for users to pay for content in the overall social and Internet environment. Now let’s continue to analyze from the perspective of WeChat itself.

2.2 From the perspective of WeChat itself

Maintain traffic and achieve a "content closed loop"

Many well-known original creators feel that after gaining a large number of fans, there are places where they can make more money than WeChat. Keso, the whistleblower of WeChat paid reading mentioned at the beginning of the article, posted a message saying that he would sell a paid column on 36Kr , and then Ma Huateng responded to retain him, which made him make the headlines. Similarly, Li Xiang, He Caitou and others have also gone to Dedao to sell paid subscriptions . After all, selling money directly is much better than selling traffic indirectly through advertising.

This is a big problem for WeChat. After gaining a lot of attention on WeChat, these IPs did not find a good way to monetize and had to leave. This is not a good thing for content products. As the saying goes, whoever owns the IP owns the world. This is not an exaggeration, because the departure of these IPs often means taking away a large amount of traffic. Moreover, if competition for content products becomes more intense in the future and content creators are required to sign exclusive cooperation agreements, the loss of these IPs will mean the complete loss of high-quality content.

This is intolerable for WeChat. To use an inappropriate analogy, it is like fattening up a piece of meat and then feeding it to someone else's mouth. Therefore, if WeChat wants to retain this traffic and avoid the loss of more similar IPs, it needs to provide them with a simpler and more direct way to monetize - paid reading. At the same time, it also realizes a closed loop from content production to sales.

Optimize the content production environment and improve the overall content quality

Although some public accounts now have a reward function, their main source of income still comes from advertising, which means that if an article wants to generate income, it has to sell traffic.

People are not divided into different levels, but human cognition is stratified. If WeChat users are stratified according to their cognitive levels, they will find that, like many other phenomena, they form a pyramid shape, with the lower the cognitive level, the larger the number of users. Therefore, the public accounts that receive the most traffic cater to the needs of users at the bottom of the cognitive pyramid. These topics are often about emotional venting, shouting for war and killing, and chicken soup for the soul. Articles such as “If you don’t read this, you are not a Chinese”, “10 secrets to teach you XXX”, “Diaoyu Islands XXX”, and “【Beautiful Girl Picture】XXX” are everywhere because they can attract the attention of a large number of users.

This leads to the bad money driving out the good money. Articles that can vent emotions have a good market, but in-depth and professional articles are naturally not easy to get a lot of traffic because their audience is at a higher level of the cognitive pyramid. Due to the different positioning, it is naturally not feasible to monetize this type of articles through traffic. Such an environment makes it difficult to produce professional and in-depth creators.

Therefore, launching paid reading provides in-depth and professional public accounts with a more direct monetization channel , allowing these creators to focus on the content itself without having to worry about traffic or secretly trying to insert soft advertisements, which will naturally improve the overall content quality.

Pricing information to save time for users

There is more and more information and more and more choices, so more time and energy are spent on making choices, but people’s time does not increase, so the time cost of obtaining high-quality information is getting higher and higher.

Why is it so difficult for us to distinguish the good from the bad when faced with such a vast ocean of information? Because when all information is free, it has no price and there is no obvious sign for us to judge.

Finding high-quality information is like finding a high-quality product on Taobao, or finding a delicious restaurant on Dianping.com. Think about when we evaluate a pair of shoes or find a good meal on Taobao or Dianping. We first look at the price, then the reviews, and then our wallet. To put it bluntly, it is about cost-effectiveness. With obvious price tags and evaluation levels, we can easily judge whether it is worth buying.

By the same token, precisely because all information is now free, we have lost our direct criteria for judgment. Faced with a rapidly changing world where knowledge is rapidly updated and iterated, we have an anxiety about seeking knowledge, but we can only search in the vast ocean based on personal experience or recommendations from others. On the other hand, if information also has a price and is evaluated, the efficiency of finding high-quality information will be much higher. In order to save time and spend some money, it is still worthwhile for many users.

As for how to ensure the rationality of information prices, prevent users from being deceived, prevent clickbait and clever headlines from inducing users to pay, etc., this is what WeChat needs to focus on.

2.3 From the perspective of content creators

WeChat is a huge traffic giant. If it can provide a direct monetization channel and offer more commissions (the larger the scale, the lower the marginal cost, and the huge size of WeChat makes the marginal cost of information even lower), it will be a great help in this regard. Then why should I bother switching to other products to monetize? In addition, professional and in-depth content producers do not have to cater to traffic. They only need to focus on their own professional content and serve a certain group well to support themselves. Wouldn't it be more dignified to live this way?

2.3 From the user's perspective

For users who are willing to spend money to save time, I would rather spend some money to subscribe to the content of a public account that meets my needs, rather than panning for gold in the sand of massive amounts of content, most of which is garbage. The time cost is even less cost-effective. In addition, although these contents can be obtained through various abnormal channels, this also requires time and energy. If I weigh the latter, it is less cost-effective, so I might as well spend some money. In addition, spending money to subscribe to knowledge should give me a sense of superiority, which means I am an ambitious young man!

For users who are unwilling to spend money, I will just spend time waiting. Anyway, I am not in a hurry to read it. Generally speaking, the author will delay the free version in order to gain more influence. Alternatively, I can always find it by spending time searching on the Internet. If I am not sensitive to the time cost, that is also fine.

The above analysis from four perspectives: the overall environment, WeChat itself, creators, and users, concludes that it is more reliable for WeChat to launch paid reading at this time.

Okay, after saying so much, what does it have to do with me other than the fact that I might spend more money reading the official account in the future? Yes, WeChat has 800 million users, and every new feature it releases is likely to bring a huge wave of dividends to those who seize the opportunity first. Let’s analyze what this means below.

3. What are the crises in the content payment field?

I want to put forward my point in a sentence, but my Chinese level is really poor, so I'll just borrow a famous quote from Dickens: "It is the best of times, it is the worst of times; it is the spring of hope, it is the winter of despair."

As the title of this section suggests, “crisis” is a wise word that means both “danger” and “opportunity”.

3.1 Danger

The competition for user "attention" is becoming increasingly fierce. In essence, all content manufacturers are competitors, and what they are competing for is the user's "attention", or the user's time.

Low-quality content will no longer be so popular

The low-quality content mentioned here refers to content that does not require professional knowledge and is not suitable for in-depth reading, including various inspirational articles, advertising soft articles, emotional venting, etc. After WeChat launched paid reading, this part of the content continued to go the same way, continuing to gain fans' attention in the original way and still making money by selling advertisements, because this part of the content does not meet the conditions for payment. Users’ willingness to pay is expected to be low.

But what is certain is that it will lose a considerable number of users, because users have limited attention. If they have paid to subscribe to certain content, then they will definitely pay more attention to the paid content . After all, they have spent money. Correspondingly, these low-quality contents will lose these users.

Various content distribution platforms will be impacted

In essence, everyone is competing for the user's attention. When users decide to spend money to subscribe to public account content, they will pay more attention to WeChat and correspondingly reduce the attention spent on other content platforms. Products including Toutiao and Duoduo will be affected. Users may still spend time on headlines, but more accurately, they will spend time on content that is different from official accounts, such as short news and short videos. However, the time spent will definitely decrease. Based on our analysis above, some big Vs on Duoduo may return to the official account.

E-book publishers will be hit

It is still unclear what form paid reading on WeChat will take. It is possible that exclusive serialized content such as online novels and comics will be more suitable for publication on official accounts in the future. This will actually make it easier to reach users, after all, everyone is using WeChat. Official accounts can also be combined with mini-programs , especially for Android users, who can directly put the mini-program shortcut in the form of an APP on the desktop, making the access path shorter.

From this perspective, both online literature platforms and e-book publishers are likely to be affected.

Unnecessary charges have led to a huge loss of fans

Not all public accounts, or not all content, are suitable for charging. Let me first talk about a few areas that are suitable for charging. Professional and constructive suggestions are suitable for charging, content that can output value recognition and establish emotional connections is suitable for charging, content written by people with strong personal IP is suitable for charging, and content that continuously outputs knowledge in a systematic structure to enhance the cognition of a certain group is suitable for charging.

If the content does not provide value to users, at least potential value in the future, charging rashly may lead to the risk of a large number of fans unfollowing you.

3.2 Opportunities

The rise of professional and in-depth content

Charging fees can allow professionals to focus on content depth, provide better content, attract more people to subscribe, and then attract more writing experts to join the official account, forming a virtuous circle of high-quality content. We don’t know how big of an impact this will have on the media industry, we can only wait and see.

Print media can also make money on WeChat

Currently, many print media have also opened public accounts, but after all, they cannot charge direct fees. They are engaged in influence or traffic business. If WeChat launches paid reading, driven by their own brands, perhaps some print media that provide high-quality content will also be able to make money on WeChat.

Mini Programs can also play a big role in purely online content

The positioning of mini programs is to connect online and offline and provide marketing channels for offline services, but it may also play a big role in purely online content, especially for Android users. In the Android system, mini programs can be placed directly on the desktop. When I subscribe to the content of a public account, I certainly hope to have the most direct entrance to the content. The desktop shortcut of the mini program can just meet the needs of this scenario.

Spring is coming for the rights protection knights

When WeChat content is charged, the need for intellectual property protection becomes even stronger. This is because if the articles that are painstakingly written are easily stolen and reprinted, it means the loss of huge amounts of money. Protecting the exclusivity of original works is the fundamental prerequisite for charging for content.

Therefore, the demand for rights protection among various public accounts will be stronger, which also brings huge opportunities to the rights protection market.

Therefore, WeChat’s paid reading will definitely have an impact on the content field. Let us wait and see how big the impact will be. Where there are dangers there are opportunities, and experts are always good at seizing opportunities and taking advantage of the situation.

Mobile application product promotion service: APP promotion service Qinggua Media advertising

The author of this article @Frank compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!