What if your social networks had a monthly payment fee??

Would you pay a fee “Netflix” in your social networks to avoid advertising and remunerate the creators of good content? This is a debate that will soon be on the table of some social platform owners.

If you're short on time, I'll summarize it in this video:

It seems that, for the time being, that "social" quota would not be accepted

I dare not call "research" a modest survey conducted on social networks with results measured in 24h. But as they say in my village, less is nothing. Near 1.200 Votes

I asked in 4 social networks Would you pay a fee “Netflix” in your (network name) to avoid advertising and remunerate creators of good content? and the results have been these: 

Linkedin

Twitter

Would you pay a fee “Netflix” on Twitter to avoid advertising and pay creators of good content?

— Guillem Recolons #SiNoAportasNoImportas (@GuillemRecolons) October 23, 2021

Social Media Engagement, a parallel test

The curious thing is that the survey has also helped me to know the "engagement" or level of interaction that a question like the one described generates in the different networks.

It is surprising that, equality of "real" followers (I have never bought followers on any social network), LinkedIn has been the network with the highest response if I compare it with Twitter. Linkedin with more than 1.200 responses against Twitter with 50 Answers.

The difference is important, and it makes me wonder if I should leave Twitter or limit myself to a testimonial presence there as I did with Facebook years ago.

Instagram, with just 16 Votes, and Facebook, With 17 "no" and a “Yes” I don't consider them because they are networks where I have a smaller community., and also my audience is more company than personal.

Error in the perception of value

There are some comments attached to the survey that suggest that the mere fact that they have our data is a sufficient payment. Respectable opinion.

But advertising, on the one hand, and a capricious algorithm that prioritizes that we see what the network wants and not what each of us wants, it can lead to a collapse.

What do I mean by collapse?? that we will go to look for content in places where we find them the first time and without distractions.

Do we want to avoid advertising or bad publicity??

I thought the comment of the expert in strategy and digital transformation was correct Command Liussi Depaoli: 

"Good kick-off Guillem. Let's see, would pay not so much to avoid advertising but to punish bad publicity (the uns segmented, not interested) with the result of exploiting the price for impressions of advertisers. It would improve the wall and improve professionalism in the setting. I would also pay for better tools (those that have today have not achieved what Microsoft promised of full integration with e.g., MS Office)".

Isn't there a certain hypocrisy in the fact that we don't pay a penny for Whatsapp?, the digital platform we use the most? 

I remember when I first downloaded the Whatsapp app on 2009. They launched it as a pilot for IOS, with a cost of 1€. A year later it would be released on Android and Windows, and Whatsapp (at that time it did not belong to Facebook) decided that it would be at zero cost for all operating systems.

The anecdote is that there was a massive demonstration in the world with the complaint about that cost of 1 euro (a single payment forever) as an abuse. I must remember, for centennials, than before Whatsapp, Telegram... SMS had a cost close to 50 euro cents PER MESSAGE. Make numbers. Your phone bill suddenly dropped by about 200 euros per year for the fact of paying ONE single euro... and so and so we force the platform to eliminate that payment are we okay with the head?

Of course, that's where the problems came. Being "free" they dedicated themselves to squeezing the most out of our data and thus give "the ball" and sell it to Facebook in February of 2014 By 19.000 millions of dollars (Congratulations to Jan Koum, the founder). 

The cases of A Small World, TuentiCine, SuperFollows or newlife.ai

Paid social networks are not new. asmallworld was launched in 2004 from Zurich -Switzerland- with a positioning that The Wall Street Journal defined as “MySpace for Millionaires” (consider that neither Facebook nor Twitter existed then). 

To be part of the most complete plan of asmallworld, the user must pay near 22.000 euros per year. But don't worry, there are more affordable annual fees of 350 or 5.200 euros per year.

The defunct social network Tuenti launched in 2011 (with streaming services still in diapers) a premium service called TuentiCine. Failed, possibly because it is difficult to introduce a payment when it has always been free.

Twitter has launched Super Follows, and starts in a limited way in the US. USA. Followers of participating users can pay to access premium content, as bonus tweets… Content creators are allowed to make money. Rates can be 2,99, 4,99 And 9,99 monthly dollars.

For his part newlife.ai is a social platform launched on 2019 that defines itself as "a machine learning ecosystem for augmented creativity". It comes to be a Tumblr update directed by the artist Vector Newman. It has a gamification part, having to pass several stages. The app download is free, but most steps require payment.

Conclusions

Answering the question What if your social networks had a monthly payment fee?, seems an immense majority (two thirds) would migrate to other options, renouncing its presence in those networks. But it is to be expected that there are payment options within the platforms.

I read in Pure Marketing that Facebook "is already trying to lay the foundations to take over the premium content market that now dominates Substrack and that gives access to paid newsletters".

The same source treats the model Twitch and your key to success: users don't pay to access Twitch, but to do it to the contents of those creators who really interest them. And that's where the idea is., which also applies YouTube in its premium version.

Here's the podcast. You can hear it iniVoox, Spotify, AndApple Podcast.

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Stock Photos from 4LUCK / Shutterstock