Crypto Communities Are Going to Leverage Subscription Models
The Future is Subscriptions for All Apps in fact
Hey Guys,
Twitch was acquired by Amazon and the entire internet is copying it now. Mind you China was already doing what Twitch does with tipping and subscriptions a long time before as the social commerce leader of app and mobile behavior.
In 2014, Twitch—a web platform that allows users to stream video of themselves playing video games to followers—was purchased by Amazon for $970 million. Microsoft created Mixer but failed to compete with Twitch, inspite of getting even more into the Gaming Metaverse in recent years.
In the latest Bitcoin bull market crypto community became even more important. A lot of this today takes place on Telegram and Discord. It could have been Twitter and WhatsApp, but it wasn’t meant to be. Now Telegram, WhatsApp and Twitter will all soon be monetizing via subscriptions in 2023. Just like Zoom or Twitch does.
Subscription models got more traction as digital media went behind paywalls and platforms like Substack popularized the model and shows that it’s now the new normal especially with podcasts. Spotify’s subscription model is yet another good example who dominate the music-streaming and podcasting and soon the audiobook category.
While Netflix is waning, there’s an entire subscription economy that’s just forming that will stimulate the Creator Economy and its intersection with crypto. If Twitch killed the competition in gaming streaming and how people can tip their favorite Creators, the likes of YouTube are learning on the job. However, for Telegram and WhatsApp it marks a new era for Comms and group apps.
Telegram Will Monetize via Subscriptions
During the pandemic Telegram became even more popular and more central to Web3 startup groups, token groups and crypto trading communities.
The Subscription Economy Goes Mainstream in 2023
Snapchat is also working on this. So in very short order we’ll literally see everyone doing Subscriptions:
WhatsApp
Telegram
Snapchat
Discord
Twitter
Facebook Groups, and so forth.
The subscription model is just the most efficient for monetization in B2B and B2C senses.
The feature, called Snapchat Plus (because everyone's doing it), was first reported on Twitter by app developer and researcher Alessandro Paluzzi on Thursday.
Simultaneously everyone is following in the footsteps of Zoom, Patreon, Twitch, Slack, Substack and others. The list is probably way longer than I’m aware of. It also has repercussions on the crypto community in the next crypto winter which has likely already begun.
This immediately gives the likes of Twitter and Snap more viability. If Snap’s stock keeps coming down like it will, it will be on sale or on a discount in the near future. For Twitter is pretty a pretty hard sell but they do have daily active power users in droves.
For Telegram, Discord and other community based platforms, it’s even more exciting. Even the lowly Medium app did the subscription model and somehow survives to this day.
It’s hard to gauge the real numbers of Telegram or WhatsApp to be honest. The company's FAQ page reports: "Telegram has over 500 million monthly active users and is one of the 10 most downloaded apps in the world." The reason is these apps are choked full of fake accounts and duplicate users like everyone else. Meta has likely been lying for years about its true global users. When companies don’t report real monthly or daily active user numbers it’s a major red flag, like we see with LinkedIn.
Coinbase with its NFT hub must have been hoping it could lure people into paying a sub eventually. Sadly their timing was God awful to create the “Instagram for NFTs”, so they have laid off now a bunch of people.
https://nft.coinbase.com/
Telegram announced that it would launch a paid subscription plan for users later this month. The paid subscription plan would allow users to have a higher limit for chats, media, and file uploads. This is more or less what Slack and Zoom do.
While Netflix has to pivot into Advertising and digital media is pivoting into audio, it’s clear the Subscription Economy is coming and it will be a great reckoning and benchmark for real engagement.
Would you pay for access to some advanced features of Snap, Twitter, WhatsApp or Telegram? Certainly doing it for the right Discord, could be a possibility for some.
Web3 May be Boxed Out of Mainstream Apps and Community Platforms
This is before many Web3 communities and more decentralized apps even have consumer traction. Who will they compete in revenue generation against Web2 apps with huge traction and monetization? It’s not even clear.
As I see it right now, the Gaming Metaverse, Corporate Metaverse and Ad-based App Economy is going to leverage subs to box out Web3 players entirely, and just acquire a good ones. Why would Facebook not acquire Coinbase or even Substack for that matter? What would stop Snap from eventually being acquired by Apple or ByteDance for example?
Many users avoid WhatsApp due to its privacy and data-sharing history. Telegram was a huge beneficiary of this.
You can see the poll I made on LinkedIn about this here. We still might be paying for these subs in Ether and other cryptos, ironically.
I’m out of space. Thanks for reading!