By Aisha Majid, PressGazette, April 20, 2023
Micropayments have long been touted as a solution to the revenue challenges faced by the news industry in the internet age, but have never taken off.
“Both [the ad-supported and subscription] models are under pressure,” believes Dominic Young, a former News UK executive and founder of micropayments platform Axate.
Free, advertising-supported journalism intended to chase clicks and therefore ad revenue has downgraded the news experience, he says.
Subscriptions, a widespread reader revenue model, are working but only for a handful of publishers, while even success stories such as the Washington Post are starting to lose subscribers.
“There’s no model that serves the middle market at all in terms of the mass market of people who used to pay for news but no longer do because they don’t want to subscribe. And there’s increasing dissatisfaction amongst consumers with ad-funded sites. So I think there’s a big, big opportunity sitting there in the middle,” he says.
Recent Comments