Douyin has removed its paid knowledge products from its shelves. Is it starting to rectify the chaos of "cutting leeks"?

"Douyin announced that it would remove its educational training products? This move caused a stir in the paid knowledge product track of Douyin and Xuelang. This article analyzes and discusses the reasons why Douyin took this action from the perspective of external factors and internal factors. If you have also been paying attention to this phenomenon for a long time, come and read and discuss it together."

There has been a major "earthquake" in the Tik Tok knowledge payment industry.

On March 23, Douyin and Xuelang successively issued announcements, announcing that virtual goods such as education and training, life entertainment, and recharge will be removed from the platform, and the specific online time will be notified separately.

As soon as the news came out, the live streaming short video industry was in an uproar. Industry insiders were discussing whether the app would be temporarily or indefinitely removed from the shelves. Was it an adjustment or a rectification?

Some people speculate that it may be because too many people have cut off the leeks, which has affected the ecology; but some people think that only the official channels have been removed, which will not actually cause much impact, and courses can still be sold through external link mini programs...

In fact, chaos in the knowledge payment track has existed for a long time. It is called the "Ashura field" for making quick money, and behaviors such as "deception" and "cutting leeks" are commonplace.

Will this delisting rectify these chaos? Will the paid knowledge track usher in a new spring?

1. Douyin removes educational training products

On March 23, Douyin and Xuelang (Douyin's knowledge payment platform) successively issued the "Announcement on the Temporary Removal of the First-level Education and Training Category", announcing that all products such as education and training, life entertainment, and recharge will be removed from the shelves.

The announcement stated that due to system upgrades, the operation of education and training products is temporarily not supported. Affected by this, in the first-level education and training category, the existing courses distributed through Douyin Classroom and Xuelang will be removed from the shelves, and the creation of new course products will not be supported for the time being. However, the courses that have been paid for can still be studied normally in Douyin Classroom and Xuelang and will not be affected.

Xuelang is Douyin’s paid knowledge platform, which helps educational creators to promote and monetize their courses on Douyin. All virtual courses sold on Douyin need to be listed, traded, watched and learned through Douyin Xuelang.

According to the announcement, not only will all educational and training products be banned from Douyin in the future, but all existing products will also be removed from the shelves. This will have a huge impact on experts and anchors who sell courses on Douyin.

Afterwards, many knowledgeable Vs on Douyin said that they had received reminders from Douyin e-commerce officials. At the same time, Douyin's traffic investment platform Qianchuan also stopped operating education and training and life entertainment recharge categories.

The news caused an uproar in the knowledge payment circle, and netizens called it "a painful day for TikTok knowledge payment bloggers."

It is reported that the Douyin education and training products were removed from the shelves at 10 am on March 24, but according to relevant media reports, an e-commerce practitioner said that the actual removal time was at the end of March.

However, according to Xinbochang’s observations, education and training products can still be purchased on Douyin, and many anchors are also broadcasting normally, and do not seem to have been greatly affected.

For example, @雪梨英语教育, which has 83,000 followers, has been saying in the live broadcast room that her course activity is on its last day, after which the platform will no longer allow sales, and has called on users in the live broadcast room who are in need to sign up as soon as possible.

However, Xinbochang discovered that the course page of "Tik Tok Course" has been removed from the shelves, and in the Xuelang App, there is also a prominent "Important Notice" at the top of the homepage, saying that the system is being upgraded and the purchase of courses is not supported for the time being.

2. What impact will it have ?

Regarding this adjustment, Douyin officially gave the reason as technological upgrade, but did not disclose the specific reason.

According to some Douyin influencers, it may be related to Apple's 30% service fee, or the two sides have not yet reached an agreement. It is reported that Apple's high handling fee (i.e. Apple tax) has happened before. In 2017, WeChat and Apple had friction because of Apple's 30% reward.

To this day, this problem has not been well solved, which is also a headache for many platforms, and Douyin is no exception.

Therefore, some people believe that Douyin’s removal of educational training products is actually a “fight between gods” between Douyin and Apple, and everything will definitely return to normal soon.

Douyin's announcement of the removal stated that the adjustment to the education and training category was only "temporary" and the specific opening time would be notified separately. This means that it is unknown how long this sudden "accident" will last, or even whether it will be available again in the future.

No one knows the specific reasons for the adjustment, but this news is undoubtedly a huge shock to the experts and anchors who do paid knowledge, and even the entire paid knowledge track of Douyin.

At present, most of the paid knowledge bloggers on Douyin either directly use Douyin stores to conduct virtual product transactions, and users can directly place orders to purchase courses through short videos and live broadcast rooms; or they use external link mini-programs, such as Qianliao Classroom, Dolphin Knows, etc.

Most of the external link mini programs require a certain amount of fees, such as version fees, commissions, etc. Some also require corresponding qualifications. Moreover, the external link mini programs are not presented in the form of small yellow carts, but mini program links.

Therefore, in the Xinbochang reader exchange group, some industry insiders believe that the removal of paid knowledge products by Douyin will not have much impact in essence, because Douyin mainly removed Xuelang, and other paid knowledge mini-programs were not affected.

In addition, Xinbochang also found that after the Douyin announcement, many accounts on the platform took advantage of the popularity and published content on how to teach knowledge bloggers how to deal with the storm. For example, they called on knowledge bloggers to settle in their private domains, use Douyin to attract traffic to build paid communities, enrich product monetization, and focus on offline business.

Therefore, some industry insiders believe that although Douyin’s adjustment seems to be aggressive, it is actually just a feint, because most of the education and training products on Douyin can still be purchased normally, and the related live broadcast rooms selling courses are also broadcasting normally.

"What's important is what Douyin will do next, whether it will raise the threshold and re-set some regulations after it goes online again." A senior industry observer said that this may be a signal that the platform and even the entire industry are beginning to regulate the knowledge payment track.

3. Industry chaos has existed for a long time

"There are too many scammers on the platform. Paying for knowledge is just like 'cutting leeks'. It should have been regulated long ago." A Douyin user said this in response to the delisting incident.

In fact, the chaotic behavior of knowledge payment on Douyin has existed for a long time, and it has always been called a "Asura field" for making quick money.

Previously, an MCN operator confessed to the media: " Douyin is different from WeChat public accounts, Taobao stores, Xiaohongshu and other platforms. What is needed is not long-term accumulation, but operators are required to monetize traffic in the shortest possible time. Once the monetization window is missed, the number of Douyin fans will be meaningless. In the final analysis, Douyin is a 'quick money battlefield' ."

Therefore, in the field of knowledge payment, "making quick money" has become a consensus, and various behaviors such as "success studies", "deception", and "cutting leeks" are commonplace, resulting in various negative cases being common.

For example, the stories of Zhou Wenqiang, Zheng Xiangzhou, Nie Xiao and others who were reported by their real names and claimed to be "success gurus" and used knowledge payment to deceive consumers and ended up failing have long been widely circulated in the industry.

In addition, private board meetings, emotional dating groups and investment and franchising models of bloggers such as Sea Cucumber Brother and Da Lan are also very popular on Douyin.

"Toutoutang", the top paid knowledge V who sells the most courses on Douyin, was once named and banned by People's Daily.

In March 2022, fans of Tou Tou Tang took to the Internet to defend their rights, saying that they spent a high tuition fee of 5,980 yuan to purchase Tou Tou Tang’s short video live class, but did not receive the expected results. They wanted to refund the money but were blocked, and they had no way to defend their rights.

As the students’ reputation for defending their rights grew, on September 9, 2022, People’s Daily named “Internet celebrity Tou Tou Tang cutting leeks”, and this knowledge payment (cutting leeks) scam under the guise of “short video entrepreneurship” and “making a huge profit of 300,000 yuan a month” was revealed and exposed to the public.

Later, the Douyin account of "Tou Tou Tang" was officially blocked, but it was only blocked for a month. Today, Tou Tou Tang is still broadcasting normally. It is rumored that she earns 10 million yuan a month by selling courses, and even the microphone starts at four figures.

Wang Dafa, who calls herself the "female boss in the entertainment industry," was also previously reported by users for selling fake courses.

According to a star-chasing girl named "Zhizhi" who broke the news to the self-media "Today's Early Morning", she said that she came across Wang Dafa's live broadcast room, where Wang Dafa shared industry insider information and said that he was very familiar with various celebrity studios.

At that time, the course she was selling in the live broadcast room was called "Elite Course for the Thousand Talents Brokerage Plan", which included 10 internal referral opportunities and would directly submit resumes to well-known companies. The course fee was more than 2,600 yuan. Wang Dafa said in the live broadcast room: "High school students have a 50% chance of success, and college graduates and above have an 80% chance of success in internal referral."

After she bought the app and took the course for two or three months, she found that the courses were all recorded, not professional, not rigorous, and not even a single internal referral. She realized she had been cheated and asked for a refund, but was told that the course had already been used up and a full refund was not allowed.

According to media reports, many netizens have purchased Wang Dafa's courses through Douyin. The price of her courses has also increased from the initial 1,499 yuan to more than 3,000 yuan, and the traffic has been directed to WeChat groups through private domains. It is estimated that the revenue from live streaming and selling courses has reached one million yuan.

There are many cases of "cutting leeks". But in fact, these gray market behaviors are difficult to regulate. On the one hand, users do take the initiative to buy with a fluke mentality; on the other hand, knowledge-based paid products are different from physical products. Whether they are fake or not is often a matter of opinion, and there is no clear standard.

It is impossible for platforms such as Douyin to completely remove paid knowledge courses, and they will be put back online one day. However, this track is currently being exploited and exploited by too many people, and there is still a long way to go before it can be truly long-term and standardized.

Author: Xiaolongguo

Source: WeChat public account "New Broadcasting Field" (ID: New_bc)