Can an article be monetized on your own site

Apart from ads which are not a very good experience the only way to monetize your digital content is to put it on a subscription-based platform. This has somewhat hindered the decentralization of owning a digital content platform. As people won’t buy a subscription for a new or individual site.

What if you could put your content anywhere and still be able to monetize it?

The scaling of subscriptions and the importance of platforms

Subscriptions it is not viable for small and new content creators. Also, there is somewhat of a threshold for subscriptions, people don’t have a huge number of subscriptions. This somewhat creates a lock-in for the users; hence, new players can’t easily capture an audience. This results in a few platforms. But I guess the business works this way content and these creators are short-lived so the only way to become a good business is by becoming a platform for these content creators.

The major reason I guess why these platforms are also there is because it allows creators to focus just on content and handle everything else. But there is somewhat limitation on how you can put content out there. So with a no-code solution, some people do have their own site and store.

Pay per article (A better way to pay)

There are cases when you are interested in a particular article only. The user might be willing to pay for a single article but a subscription might be too much for him. Especially with a new player. Pay per view/content where you are paying only for the article you are interested in makes much sense here.

What if we have a easy way to pay for any article. No need to sign in and go through multiple redirections, unlock any digital content with a click of a button.

Users can monthly top-up a wallet if they want to read the paid article, They can simply unlock it with a click and money will be deducted through the wallet. What we want to play at is whichever platform the content is at users can pay for it easily through our digital interoperable wallet. So you don’t lock into a single platform.

But wait people don’t use wallets?

There is not a strong case for a wallet as of now in India. The user can pay through a normal UPI flow or through UPI lite if that becomes a thing in the future. Though normal UPI will not be a good experience. There could be a drop-off. Still, it is better.

The friction of payments and problems with paying again and again

• The mental load of deduction (calculating the cost each time you pay)
• Long flow for paying such a small amount (log in then multiple redirections)
• How to access my paid content

The friction of Deduction (Calculating the cost)

For such frequent and small-value transactions, there are multiple factors that don’t cross the threshold for users to pay. Let’s say buying the whole newspaper versus evaluating each article and considering buying some of them. Even if the cost of a newspaper is more seems like a more easy choice. The user when given choices are known to not pay. Subscriptions in this sense are easier you pay once and you get a lot of content. So the reasons to buy are high as well as it is a one-time operation.

What if we could make it seem like you are not paying and just unlocking it?

What if we could make it like a dynamic subscription where you pay monthly automatically for only what you consume?

The Long and tedious payment flow

The payment flow which takes half a minute and is filled with lots of redirection may seem fine for large transactions. But for small transactions, the user doesn’t want to go through that much. This we will clearly try to reduce a lot (with the current assumption of people will use wallets and have the app already. More on this assumption later)

What if we make it easy to the pay it is just a click away

How do I access my paid content?

Once the user buys the content, especially for one-off cases. He/she needs to find back the website or search through his mail.

All these are the problems around digital content, what if there was a way to solve them?

What if we provide a digital library to help them

Future

The problem currently is that platforms do seeem to work and the market is small. There are already big platforms publication fighting in such a small market of digital content that it becomes hard to go to an independent route. But maybe in future there could be a need where we have pay per content as a viable model along with subscription.