Tik Tok, which is not short of money, has also begun to try to charge for content

As a popular short video platform, Douyin has always been loved by users for its free content. However, Douyin has recently begun to try to pay for content, which has attracted people's attention and heated discussions. This article will explore the impact of Douyin's move on users and content creators, and whether this means that Douyin is changing its business model. Let's learn about Douyin's new changes and their possible impact through this article.

Is paying for content really that good?

On October 16, Tech Planet reported that Douyin recently tested a paid video content service, which means that when users watch some video content on the platform, they need to pay to unlock all the content. Unlike the previous short drama content payment, the paid video content tested this time is no longer limited to the single short video category of short dramas. The test has included daily life, knowledge, entertainment and other content. As long as the short video content or medium and long videos meet the platform's regulations, they can be set to pay to watch.

Earlier media reports said that Douyin customer service responded: "If you encounter a paid video, it may be that the author has enabled the payment function. If you don't want to watch it, you can swipe away. Of course, whether the video content is paid depends on whether the author has enabled this function, and Douyin cannot intervene. The specific fees are determined by the author according to the corresponding rules."

No matter how you look at it, it is clear that Douyin is exploring content payment. In fact, this is not the first time that Douyin has entered the content payment business.

In February this year, Douyin set the original interactive life experience reality show "Uncle's Restaurant" as a content fee. In August, it turned its two variety shows "All-out Action" and "Pet Doctor" produced in 2022 into paid content. Users can try 6 minutes and buy the whole season for 3 yuan. In addition, a variety of paid content such as paid short dramas, paid live broadcasts, and paid concerts have already been launched on Douyin.

For TikTok, content payment is an important choice that fits its development.

The revenue mechanism of content payment comes from the high-quality content provided by creators, and the creative environment of Douyin itself has natural advantages for the content payment mechanism, which has been verified by previous paid short dramas.

Taking the previously launched paid short drama "Twenty-Nine" as an example, users can spend 12 yuan to unlock the last four episodes, and the final number of over-subscription paying users exceeded 12,000.

The trial of paid content is not only because the creative environment of Douyin is suitable, but also because the market prospects behind content payment are very broad. According to a research report by Shanghai Securities, the market size of paid short dramas alone has reached 20 billion yuan, with daily payment of 60 million yuan, which is close to 40% of the annual box office of movies.

In addition, industry competition also helped Douyin test the waters for content. Compared with Douyin's gradual testing of content payment, Douyin's old rival Kuaishou has already built a mature system for content payment.

In 2018, Kuaishou launched the paid content "Kuaishou Classroom", and began to gradually move from recorded courses to paid content in multiple fields such as short dramas. In 2020, Kuaishou launched the "Kuaishou Star Plan", and in 2021, Kuaishou launched the paid short drama function. In February of this year, Kuaishou stated at the "2023•Incremental Effect" Magnet Conference that it would create short dramas as original ecological content. According to the E-Commerce News, as of 2022, Kuaishou has become the largest short drama consumer market, with 260 million daily active users of short dramas. The number of short drama creators on the current platform exceeds 130,000, and the cumulative number of short dramas produced has reached 60 billion.

It is worth noting that according to data, ByteDance's revenue in 2022 is equivalent to RMB 6220.88. According to The Information, citing people familiar with the matter, ByteDance's revenue in the second quarter of this year reached US$29 billion (currently about RMB 210 billion), a year-on-year increase of about 40% due to a surge in advertising and e-commerce revenue. Meta's revenue in the same period was US$32 billion, a year-on-year increase of 11%. In the first half of this year, ByteDance's revenue was approximately US$54 billion.

In terms of net profit, ByteDance led the way in net profit in 2022, reaching 145.7 billion. In the first quarter of 2023, ByteDance's revenue increased by nearly 34% year-on-year to nearly 24.5 billion US dollars; operating profit was nearly 6 billion US dollars, almost double the same period last year. ByteDance is not short of money today.

However, a realistic problem is that there is no evergreen enterprise. The growth trend of ByteDance's revenue is beginning to slow down. In order to continue to move forward, ByteDance is constantly cutting expenses on the one hand, and constantly trying to find a new growth curve on the other.

Obviously, Douyin is preparing for the future by increasing its investment in content payment.

However, compared with the mature paid content construction of Kuaishou, Douyin seems to be a bit late. So can Douyin really make full use of paid content today?

Yang Yu, business analyst and founder of Yilan Business, said: In theory, it is feasible to adopt a paid model for short videos, especially in the field of knowledge payment and short dramas. The paid model can provide financial incentives for creators to create higher quality and unique content, while also providing a better user experience.

However, Yang Yu also pointed out that the quality issue is a difficult problem after the release of content payment, especially for short video platforms. The amount of content on short video platforms is huge, and the quality varies. How to screen out high-quality content and maintain the high quality of content will be a challenge. Douyin needs to establish an effective review and supervision mechanism to ensure the quality and credibility of paid content. In addition, the platform also needs to strengthen the user feedback mechanism so that users can participate in content review and jointly maintain the quality of content.

It is worth noting that on the day when Douyin announced the test of paid content, Douyin also released the "Douyin Announcement on Cracking Down on Illegal Micro-Short Dramas", announcing that a total of 119 illegal micro-short dramas had been removed from the mini-programs recently, and 1,188 Douyin accounts that illegally promoted micro-short dramas had been dealt with.

Obviously, Douyin has also considered the quality issue in terms of content. However, Douyin may need to make some trade-offs and efforts in retaining content creators and cultivating users' payment habits.

Yang Yu believes that retaining excellent content creators requires giving them sufficient financial rewards and a creative environment so that they are motivated to continue creating high-quality content. Cultivating users' payment habits requires the platform to provide valuable and unique content and set reasonable payment thresholds and methods so that users can recognize and be willing to pay. The two are not contradictory, but complementary. Douyin may need to solve the problems of content anxiety and income anxiety by balancing the needs of creators and users.

Author: Hu Jiebin Editor: Xue Xiang

Official account: Yilan Business