I’ve been asking friends and colleagues how publishers should monetize their copyrighted work. This is what I’ve learned thus far.
Publishers produce content against which search engines and social media companies sell ads. The publishers are rewarded for incurring production expenses with a dopamine fix in the form of likes and followers. This gives creators the illusion of momentum in the marketplace but, at best, the increased traffic yields an average conversion rate no larger than 2%. So, even though less than 2% of the people who see the publisher’s content on social media and search actually pay for it, almost winning 98% of their potential conversions is enough to keep the free content flowing to the companies that are monetizing it for themselves with ads. Detailed data from Google Analytics about page views, geographic distribution, and retention only increases the power of the almost win.
This is the very same model that slot machine companies use to get gamblers addicted. In this case though, the money being dropped into the slots takes the form of creative content that’s expensive to produce and the payout is nothing more than a worthless icon on a screen. There is no jackpot that’s reasonably proportionate to the money it takes to play the game this way. Ultimately, the only people making money are the ones who own the search engines and social media platforms, and the consultants who advise businesses on social media marketing.
Hollywood, the music industry, and video game producers saw through this scam from the very beginning and protected their copyrights with a fanatical vengeance. After years of struggle, music and video streaming companies, movie studios, and gaming companies make billions of dollars while companies that devalued their copyrights, like newspapers, are going bankrupt.
Looking back, the decision by newspaper editors and publishers to ignore their copyrights and give their content away is simply astounding. Some even adopted the attitude that they provided such a valuable service to their communities they could ignore basic economics. Now, most consumers expect nearly all written content they find online to be free. This is a self-inflicted wound that only a handful of outlets will ever be able to heal.
Giving a product away for free tells customers it has an assigned value of zero; it is literally worth nothing. Once that expectation is set, it’s next to impossible to convince people otherwise. This is an economic fact that behavioral economists like Dan Ariely have written about for years.
If you believe you have a viable product, no matter what it is, assign a price to it, sell it, and let the market decide. If no one buys it, move on. If you have to use social media to help spread the word, great. But don’t, under any circumstances, tell people your product is worthless by giving it away and then expect them to pay for it later on.
I’ve been asking friends and colleagues how publishers should monetize their copyrighted work. This is what I’ve learned thus far.
Publishers produce content against which search engines and social media companies sell ads. The publishers are rewarded for incurring production expenses with a dopamine fix in the form of likes and followers. This gives creators the illusion of momentum in the marketplace but, at best, the increased traffic yields an average conversion rate no larger than 2%. So, even though less than 2% of the people who see the publisher’s content on social media and search actually pay for it, almost winning 98% of their potential conversions is enough to keep the free content flowing to the companies that are monetizing it for themselves with ads. Detailed data from Google Analytics about page views, geographic distribution, and retention only increases the power of the almost win.
This is the very same model that slot machine companies use to get gamblers addicted. In this case though, the money being dropped into the slots takes the form of creative content that’s expensive to produce and the payout is nothing more than a worthless icon on a screen. There is no jackpot that’s reasonably proportionate to the money it takes to play the game this way. Ultimately, the only people making money are the ones who own the search engines and social media platforms, and the consultants who advise businesses on social media marketing.
Hollywood, the music industry, and video game producers saw through this scam from the very beginning and protected their copyrights with a fanatical vengeance. After years of struggle, music and video streaming companies, movie studios, and gaming companies make billions of dollars while companies that devalued their copyrights, like newspapers, are going bankrupt.
Looking back, the decision by newspaper editors and publishers to ignore their copyrights and give their content away is simply astounding. Some even adopted the attitude that they provided such a valuable service to their communities they could ignore basic economics. Now, most consumers expect nearly all written content they find online to be free. This is a self-inflicted wound that only a handful of outlets will ever be able to heal.
Giving a product away for free tells customers it has an assigned value of zero; it is literally worth nothing. Once that expectation is set, it’s next to impossible to convince people otherwise. This is an economic fact that behavioral economists like Dan Ariely have written about for years.
If you believe you have a viable product, no matter what it is, assign a price to it, sell it, and let the market decide. If no one buys it, move on. If you have to use social media to help spread the word, great. But don’t, under any circumstances, tell people your product is worthless by giving it away and then expect them to pay for it later on.