Image source @ Visual China
Text | The Internet refers to the north, the author | Zheng Xiaolong, Editor | Pu Fan
There has been debate about whether Chinese netizens are willing to pay for content.
The prevailing view on the industry side is "unwillingness to pay."
Most of the "content producers" that appear in the context of industry media will attribute the pain points of the industry to "no user is willing to pay for content" or "the 'open rate' of paid subscription products is generally very low". Including when WeChat launched paid articles a few months ago, some self-media would "self-deprecatingly" say that "the day before yesterday to see your articles pay attention to you, today charge to close you" - this is a very representative view.
This atmosphere also further "disciplines" the "self-expression" of many content platforms. The most recent example is the New Year's Day of this year, ByteDance launched a paid reading product "Tiktwen Novel", the main is the "paid novel market", the relevant interpretation of the industry media almost without exception mentioned that this product will "precipitate more head content, so that users can have more choices, enhance their willingness to pay" - at least a good wish of practitioners.
But in another parallel universe, "netizens are willing to pay for premium content" is not only an established fact, but also considered "enough to form a new market" and "the red sea of content products is far from coming."
Take the Himalayas, for example. Six years ago in the winter, Himalaya played the "123 Carnival" for the first time, eager to do the "double eleven" in the field of content payment, and then in 2020, sales finally broke through the 1 billion mark, Ximalaya co-founder and co-CEO Yu Jianjun wrote in the circle of friends with emotion, "Carnival is just the beginning."
In the eyes of some industry analysts, this is a small fight, and high-quality content to promote user payment will bring more industry opportunities. Chen Yuetian of Chenhai Capital believed as early as 2017 that "we pay attention to the content payment industry on the large side, and payment will change the entire industry chain form" - for example, everyone is talking about IP and industry-derived stories, and the process transformation of simple "front-end out OF IP, back-end by games and movies" is "problematic", "but when content directly relies on user payment to achieve profitability, the industry will be relatively benign".
It is worth mentioning that if you apply the basic logic of "content payment" in China according to the basic logic of "capital profit" and "products are the result of market demand", you will find that people have successfully accepted this "concept", and the trajectory of industrial development can be called "a turnip and a pit".
As early as 2003, the "starting point Chinese network" launched the VIP paid reading specific chapter system, opened the online literature paid reading model; around 2010, "Aiyouteng" and other major video websites began to try single video on demand, monthly payment and other models; in 2016 , "Zhihu" released one-on-one paid Q&A products, "get" APP launched paid column subscriptions, paid audio and e-books and other products, the media directly called "the first year of knowledge payment" has arrived, the content payment scene from "entertainment" Strides into the "workplace", "life" and "learning".
Is it possible that people's reluctance to pay for content may be a false proposition?
How big are people paying to read at the moment?
In fact, since "content" appeared in the Internet industry as a commodity, consumers willing to pay for it have never been absent, and its scale has been expanding, and many data reports from third-party research institutions have pointed out this trend.
For example, iResearch data shows that in 2016, 33.8% of new media users have generated payment behavior for digital content, compared with 2014, there was a survey showing that 69.7% of netizens are unwilling to pay for Internet content, compared with the growth of consumers is very impressive. According to the "2020 China Digital Reading Report" released by the China Audiovisual and Digital Publishing Association, consumers are willing to pay for high-quality content by 86.3%, and they are generous – the average monthly spending of 26.8% of paid e-reading users in 2020 has reached 100 yuan or more.
Of course, these figures are more macroscopic. To be more specific about whether people are willing to pay for content, why they are willing to pay, and when they accept the consumption scenario of "paid reading", we also need to refer to more segmented data.
Take paid journalism, for example. In 1997, the Washington Post pioneered the introduction of online payment for reading, ushering in a new era of payment for digital news content. The Internet has brought a new round of technological revolution to the traditional paper media industry, and after reshaping the consumption habits of users, it has begun to grab users who originally belonged to the traditional paper media industry on a large scale.
In 2015, the New York Times had more than one million paid digital subscribers; by 2018, nearly 80% of the news media in the United States had set up a paid reading model online.
By the time it was officially introduced into China, paid journalism had reached a relatively mature stage. Chinese news readers have become very clear: good content cannot be free forever, there is always a need for someone to share the cost, and this "person" is the reader himself.
Payments for digital content in domestic media can be traced back to the Wenzhou Daily Newspaper Group in 2007. On April 8, 2007, Wenzhou Daily Newspaper Group's "Digital Newspaper Online Distribution and Marketing System" began to be applied, and its "Wenzhou Daily", "Wenzhou Evening News", "Wenzhou Metropolis Daily" and "Wenzhou Business Daily" were launched through Wenzhou News Network, implementing a fee system, becoming the first "digital newspaper" in China to charge, with a circulation of more than 50,000 copies at its highest.
However, the imperfect market environment and the "one report, one network" strategy at that time made this charging attempt last only three years and ended hastily.
Guo Tianle, vice president of Wenzhou Daily Newspaper Group, once summed up this attempt, arguing that the general comprehensive newspaper content is "not worth anything at all", ordinary readers have no desire to spend money to buy information, and "there is no atmosphere of digital newspaper charging in society". Readers at the time also made incomprehensible noises on the Internet, believing that only by setting up fewer obstacles and providing more free information could we attract more people, "Not everything is commercial." ”
Since then, people's dailys, southern metropolis daily, global times, etc. have also begun to pay for digital content, and most of them have ended in stopping charging.
Paid-to-read media like Caixin, which have been commercially successful, are in the minority. According to the 2021 Global Digital Subscription Report released by the International Press Federation (FIPP), Caixin from China ranks 10th with 700,000 paid subscribers in the global list of news paid subscriptions.
Of course, to a certain extent, the success of Caixin can be understood as "occupying the pit" in the field of paid journalism earlier. After all, before the implementation of full payment, Caixin has begun to pay for some content: in addition to the paper version issued offline, the digital version of Caixin Weekly has always implemented a charging system, priced at 298 yuan / year. In 2017, Caixin Media announced that the full platform was officially fully charged, and a year later, its paid content product "Caixintong" accumulated more than 200,000 paid individual users. When this accumulation encounters a more mature payment environment, success seems to come naturally.
In the view of Kang Weiping, vice president of Caixin Media, the core of Caixintong is a news content product, so the commercial performance is strongly related to the cycle of the news itself - when social hot events or blockbuster investigative reports are launched, user growth is relatively fast. "[The growth in paid subscriptions] has reduced the pressure on advertising revenue," and paid subscriptions have further increased user expectations for quality content, which requires media outlets to strive to consistently produce valuable stories.
Take the online text market as an example.
In 2003, the starting point of the main occult literature Chinese network (hereinafter referred to as the starting point) was founded, at that time was completely filled with free Internet ecology, the starting point chose a similar gambling road - charging readers - from the perspective of the starting point, the simple interest incentive is not conducive to ensuring the continuity of the author's creation, only with direct "realization" interests driven, to provide the most needed guarantee for the supply side, the author can continue to provide users with good works, so as to fundamentally solve the industry's difficulties.
This year, the starting point stood on the runway of the rapid growth of Internet traffic, officially launched the first batch of VIP electronic publishing works, the 2-point/ thousand-word paid reading system also began to become the industry standard, and the paid reading model was also considered to be the key answer to the three most important questions that can be original literary websites, that is, the author is motivated, he can make money, and effectively prevent piracy.
The results also appear to be positive. The performance report released by Reading Group, where the starting point is located, shows that its average monthly paid users have exceeded 10 million, and the average monthly income of each paying user has reached 36.4 yuan, which is summarized in the financial report as "users are more willing to pay for high-quality content".
In the audiovisual space, data may be more representative, and "getting consumers to pay for content" seems like a "result if you do it":
The video membership of the two major video giants of iQiyi and Tencent has reached the scale of 100 million yuan very early, and Tencent Music, one of the world's four major music streaming platforms, also has more than 60 million paid members, and in the fourth quarter of 2020, Tencent Music's music payment rate has historically exceeded 9%, compared with 4.2% in the same period of 2018.
When more and more people are willing to pay, the form of the content itself is gradually enriched. In addition to the early diversified products such as music, video, and literature, with the rapid development of Internet content, the emergence of emerging content formats such as live broadcast rewards and short video live streaming has further expanded the connotation of content payment.
Kuaishou's third-quarter financial report data shows that the average number of monthly paying users of live broadcasting has reached 46.1 million, and the average revenue of monthly live broadcasting paying users has increased to 55.9 yuan, an increase of 8.8% compared with the same period in 2020. Douyin is already experimenting with the "paid live broadcast" model, and Ouyang Nana has used this model when Douyin participated in the summer song party activities, paying 6 yuan to unlock the whole live broadcast. Relevant data show that on the night of the live broadcast, the total number of live broadcasts in Ouyang Nana's live broadcast room was 7.5 million, and the highest peak was 203,000.
It can be said that these countless times by the media quoted data, all show that the domestic content industry is gradually bidding farewell to the barbaric era of random copying, the era of "content should not be free" has passed, content consumption is about to become the next "food, clothing, housing and transportation".
Why do we find it so hard to pay for content?
People are willing to pay for content, but why do we feel strongly at the same time that "it's hard for people to pay for content"?
In the media report on content payment, there is such an example, a junior student majoring in communication at a university compiled a list - "In 2016, I paid 3517.91 yuan for online knowledge and tools", she said that she was trapped by "knowledge monetization".
A lot of content payment behavior arises from "anxiety", which is probably one of the most important reasons for "payment pain".
Luo Zhenyu said at a public event that he understands content payment — the essential logic of people's willingness to pay is that "the moment you see it or pay for it, you immediately imagine yourself as another person, a self that is much better than you are now" — guided by this kind of thinking, can people have such an imagination and become the standard of production of paid content.
Luo Zhenyu "turned" this thinking into a specific product, and then it was borrowed a lot by his peers. In 2013, the "Luo Ji Thinking" knowledge talk show launched a paid membership system, and the 5500 member places sold out in only half a day. After that, Zhihu launched "Worth" and Zhihu Live, and began to pay live lectures; Ma Dong took his "Strange Heavenly Group" to teach everyone to "talk well" at Himalaya FM, teaching people how to "avoid communication minefields and speak beautifully and decently"; Douban launched "Douban Time", inviting Kitajima and his friends to explain poetry to paying users.
Of course, in today's explosion of information stock and the full extension of information media, people hope that through the medium in their hands, they can see the scene outside the eyes, feel the feeling outside the body, and obtain the "life" that they have not experienced, which is a human instinct, and "knowledge" is also the subject matter that best meets this standard.
Zhu Hongwen, deputy dean of the School of Philosophy and Society of Beijing Normal University, once said in an interview with the media, "The development of knowledge payment shows that knowledge itself is valuable in the market and is recognized by consumers, reflecting the improvement of people's demand for knowledge, and also explaining the cultivation of people's payment habits." In a discussion of Nanjing University students on content payment, some people also said that everyone has a measure of the value of knowledge in their minds, "Knowledge is difficult to have quantitative value, how much knowledge can be exchanged for how much money is difficult to define, but knowledge is valuable, there is no doubt." ”
In andy Warhol's words, all Coca-Cola was delicious, Elizabeth Taylor knew it, and a strange tramp knew it.
But in the final analysis, "knowledge" cannot meet the "sensory needs", emphasizing "delayed satisfaction", which has higher requirements for "continuity" than the "functionality" of other consumption scenarios. In this era, it is not fun, it is the highest "consumption threshold".
In addition, in recent years, the issue of "intellectual property rights" that has frequently appeared in the field of public opinion has given the matter of content payment a layer of "sense of mission", "sense of public welfare" and "sense of social responsibility".
According to the China Youth Daily Newspaper Survey Center, 63.6% of respondents support paying for knowledge, and 73.9% of respondents pay to get an answer to a certain question. "The new generation of consumers such as post-90s and post-00s should have the habit of paying for copyright or knowledge", which has become a default "subjective fact" under the continuous emphasis of all parties.
For example, Station B CEO Chen Rui said in a speech with the theme of "The New Generation of Content Consumption" that Generation Z, which is mainly post-90s and post-00s, respects copyright and is willing to pay for high-quality copyright content: "Last year (2019), our platform adopted a paid-first-look strategy, for high-quality copyright content, users can watch it a week in advance as long as they pay... 'Pay first look' has increased the number of paid large members of Station B by 51 times.
Providing positive feedback to the industry through content payment is the expectation of the head industry giants and the expectations of the grassroots practitioners at the bottom.
Music self-media "Rock Paradise" is used to inventory the annual top ten rock bands at the end of each year, and in the 17th year of the "National Shake Ten Series", "Rock Paradise" has chosen the paid model, and readers need to spend 14.9 yuan to unlock the full text.
In a subsequent article, Yang Zixuan, the manager, explained that the reason for choosing the payment model was because he didn't want to earn money on his knees and didn't want to earn money from Party A, and then fed you like Finally Wait for This Treasure Variety Show.. When content producers begin to consciously "clean" their own works, or can have some initiative to reduce the frequency of advertorials or ads appearing in their own update lists, there is no lack of self-confidence behind the paid users.
Also in the paid Q&A model that has emerged in recent years, the feeling of some self-media people is that for paid content, authors will be more responsible. Qi Dian, an emotional blogger with 4.72 million Weibo fans, will think twice when replying to netizens' questions, "because netizens have paid for you, and when answering, they will consider each other, try to write comprehensively, and take care of the emotions of fans." ”
Everyone is riveting hard to win over paying users, compared to consumers who are harvested by milk tea and blind boxes, the meaning given to content consumers is too much.
Finally, practically speaking, the market does not need everyone to be willing to pay for content, "only a few works are worth paying to read" is more in line with the law of creation.
Take the Korean comic "I Upgrade Independently", which has been used by many self-media as a model for "paid content" as an example. The Korean comic, which claims to make 170 million yuan in two years, is believed to benefit from the cultivation of Payment Habits of Korean consumers, citing data that the proportion of readers who have paid reading experience in South Korea in 2019 has reached 37.4%, and the per capita consumption of Korean webcomics and novels in 2020 has increased from 33.94 yuan (5864 won) in the previous year to 71.31 yuan (12321 won), an increase of more than 100% year-on-year.
But this figure is not prominent if you look at the base of South Korea's total population of 51 million, after all, it is only one-twenty-eighth of China's total population. According to the financial report released by Station B in the third quarter of 2021, its single paying user paid an average of 46 yuan per month, and the average monthly paid users increased by 59% year-on-year to 24 million, accounting for almost half of South Korea's total population.
Free may always be the background of the Internet, and "paid" is still difficult to become a trillion-dollar big business.
But there are never many people who are willing to pay for content. After all, who doesn't have a few VIPs in their hands this year, consumers are just too tired of "high hopes" and "grumble".
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