Who’s paying to consume online content?
Who pays money to consume online content? At the moment, only a small percentage of people pay to get behind online paywalls.
Prestigious news publications such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the Times, the Economist and the Spectator all have paywalls but they only serve a minority of online consumers.
Is the audience for paid online content decreasing?
Millions use free social media platforms as their go-to news source. There is unlimited free content on The Guardian and other established news outlets and even Buzzfeed is turning its hand to current affairs reporting.
The paywall revolution looks to have stalled prompting companies to re-focus their efforts to make financial returns. Selling advertorial space is one way to help pay for quality journalism but there continues to be a downward trend in ad revenue.
‘Social advertising’
Buzzfeed has turned its back on traditional banner ads towards what it calls “social advertising”. Companies pay to feature a content piece that they hope will gain traction online and to boost awareness of their brand or latest product.
For now, Buzzfeed’s ‘social advertising’ model seems to be working. Their website gets 150 million monthly unique visitors. But this model, at least for news or current affairs content, jeopardises editorial integrity and independence. So is there an alternative, sustainable model out there for the future?
Centup?
Centup is a new model that aims to reward writers for good-quality content. If readers have enjoyed reading an article or blog post, they can click the Centup button when they’ve finished and thereby donate a few cents for the content that they have consumed. The author receives a percentage of the donation with some of it also going to charity. Centup earns a cut from every donation made.
The News Hub?
The News Hub is another alternative to websites relying on display advertising as their main revenue stream. The News Hub enables journalists and bloggers to upload articles to the site and, depending on the number of page views and votes from its community of readers, get paid for their content (the top 10 percent of contributors receive a fee).
Picfair?
Picfair has a model that makes it easy for news or website editors to find unique images that are of a better quality than the standard free stock images we have come to expect online. Once a visitor to Picfair has found a photo they like, they can pay to access the original image on a secure server (minus the Picfair watermark). The photographer will receive 100% of the fee that they themselves set whilst Picfair also get a 20% commission.
So who’s paying to consume online content? At the moment, hardly anyone. But there are alternative models out there that suggest the future isn’t as bleak as some content specialists might fear.