On Sunday, Meta put an end to the greatest illusion of the last twenty years. By presenting a paid subscription concept to be certified and better referenced on Facebook and Instagram, Mark Zuckerberg has definitively broken the idea that, in the digital world, everything will continue to be free indefinitely.
Since the end of the Covid period, the economic reality of our world has been catching up with the major digital groups. Having become too dependent on with versatile revenues and after a 2022 year of stock market decline (-33% drop for the Nasdaq), they find themselves condemned to find a new path: that of subscription, a model that has advantage of ensuring recurring cash flow.
Pushing users to take out their credit card, however, promises to be complicated when it comes to digital products. After having sold their articles for free on their site for a long time, the traditional media understand this a little more every day.
In the world of video and audio streaming, available figures show that people are also reluctant to pay in case of hybrid models. As on YouTube or Spotify, rather than paying their dues, the majority opt for the version with advertisements. And when they have no choice, they do not hesitate to zap from one platform to another.
If, in principle, the change of strategy of the large digital groups is not absurd, it breaks the greatest utopia born with the Internet: that of a world where we are all equal, without distinction of social class. The digital world today risks being cut in two. On the one hand there will be those who can afford subscriptions and on the other those condemned to be invisible and stuffed with a large amount of .
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– Digital gratuity, a broken myth
Having become too dependent on , the digital giants want to believe in the subscription model, the advantage of which is to ensure recurring cash flow.