It’s time for media platforms to go beyond their subscription-only revenue models by enabling microtransactions

It is no secret that the media industry is in trouble. Human beings have moved away from scheduled consumption of content, whether it’s television or print media, to a world where news is live and everything happens in real-time.

The advent of the Internet and the proliferation of mass media consumption that happens through our mobile devices has led us down the path where we’ve all been spoilt to the extent that we feel that everything on the Internet should be free. If Google is free and Facebook is free and Wikipedia is free, why would I pay some random has-been media house who wants my money to survive? Too bad if the old can’t survive in the new age world we live in today, and it’s best if they fall by the wayside so that someone smarter, better, sexier can take their place.

Well, all that would make sense in most industries, but when you’re dealing with an industry whose only currency is the truth, unfortunately, it isn’t as simple.

Since you see, most of us might be fairly smart at an individual level, but at a collective level, we’re dumb AF. And the guys who run the information networks we get our news from have put their AI engines to good use in figuring us out. They know exactly what to show in whose feed, to elicit a certain response that will increase ‘user engagement’ which is just a fancy word for spending more time on their platform – I don’t think the AI has a moral view that pissing us off or making us feel insecure or unworthy is worse than making us happier or healthier – whatever maximizes ‘user engagement’ is what we will be offered. And more often than not, the reality or truthfulness of that content is secondary.

As a result, we see that fake news spreads across the Internet up to six times faster than real news, eagerly helped along by social network platforms whose job is to get the ‘right’ piece of content in front of the ‘right’ people so as to enable this ‘user engagement’.

It is in the context of this assault on the truth that we must see the media houses, because they are up against a billion-strong version of David that, put together, is far bigger than any Goliath they could’ve conjured up.

In the face of increasing cost pressures, renowned publications and news houses, have not only gone digital, but they’ve also gone towards paywalls and subscriptions.

This has also led to the rise of subscription-only platforms, many of which I must admit, are doing a fabulous job of delivering top-quality incisive content, whether they are covering politics, or business, or any other sphere.

However, from a penetration point of view, I would think that even the best media houses or platforms have a long way to go. For instance, it is my understanding that The Wire, which was created as a “platform for independent journalism” and with its non-corporate structure and funding, has only been able to attract 40,000 unique donors in the span of 5 years. And this is in a country of 1.35 billion people. That 40,000 makes it a mere 0.0029% of the country, or as little as 1/337th of 1%.

The Wire does have its fund-raising work cut out, as do many many others. And till now, they’ve all being going the monthly/annual subscription route. For as little as INR 1200 a year ($16), you could get access to everything The Wire creates. Most of the other platforms also operate in a similar range of INR 500 to 3600 a year ($6.6 to $48).

However, I believe that having only this monthly/annual subscription as the primary revenue stream is a flawed strategy, for a few reasons –

• Unless people really know what a given platform stands for, it becomes difficult for someone who followed a link to your platform to decide to spend anywhere between INR 200 to INR 1200 to read that one article they want to read. This usually results in one of three behaviours –
  • the visitor pays up for the subscription (for which the conversion would be <1% of all visits)
  • the visitor goes back to his/her friend who shared the link and asks for a copy of the article as this link is behind a paywall
  • the visitor does nothing and moves on to other ways to spend his/her time (this would be >95% of all visits)
• Most rational shoppers in today’s world would not spend INR 500 a month for a service that will only cost INR 1200 for the year. And in the face of that quandary, it becomes difficult to gauge the value of this one article that I want to read now, against the INR 1200 that I would ideally pay for, if I decided to go in for the subscription. Add to that the fact that there’s no way for me to know whether I would be able to do justice to the subscription by reading enough content, or would it go waste?

A much better solution, IMHO, that media platforms need to solve for right now is Price Per Article (PPA).

Basically, how much would you, as a visitor, be willing to pay to read this article right now, no questions asked.

Millions of visitors can easily lead to thousands of microtransactions.

It solves for a couple of key problems with the subscription model we stated before –

• If the platform allows for PPA content, the visitor won’t go back to his/her friend and ask for a free copy of the article (as you’d come across as a cheapskate who can’t spend a couple of bucks on content)
• Also, it’s far easier to assign a fair value to one piece of content. Do I know enough about this topic or this author to spend INR 2 for this content? If yes, great. If no, do I want to find out? If yes, great again.

In this scheme of things, whether the PPA would end up being INR 1 or INR 2 or INR 5 is actually inconsequential. It could very well differ across platforms as well as pieces of content. A gossip mag on Indiatimes might charge INR 1 but a political opinion writer on The Quint might charge INR 5. At the end, the free market will help with price discovery for every platform, for every type of content and every type of writer.

We forget that we are a country where INR 2 shampoo sachets were the rage in the 80s and 90s and the INR 5 Coke brought about the biggest comeback for Coca-Cola seen in this part of the world since the 2000s… and we wonder why only 0.0029% of the country decides to subscribe to one of the leading platforms for independent journalism over the course of half a decade?

Needless to say, the way this will have to work will be using technological solutions like a prepaid wallet that is added/activated as a plug-in in your browser. So something like a Paytm Content Wallet that is enabled on your Google Chrome browser, and since the wallet is synced with your Paytm account, you can keep topping it up with currency. Upon coming across a PPA article, all you need to do is click Purchase, and automatically, the INR amount is deducted from your Paytm Content Wallet that’s embedded in the browser you’re using.

Conceptually, a solution like this is tailored for the next level of fintech, which is to leverage cryptocurrencies for these microtransactions – not just the Bitcoins of the world, but actually cryptocurrencies that are designed for this very purpose – to be minute and stable and quick enough for microtransactions to work effectively. I know enough smart people are really working to crack that problem, but I don’t think crypto is there yet. And until then, at least in India, we will likely have to do with a regular fintech like Paytm and good old Google Chrome.

The way I see it… the answer’s staring at us right in our faces. All it needs is for us to recognize it for what it is.