Today, while driving back from a family wedding, sitting in my car, I bought some shampoo on the internet.  No, not news - many of us now use the time we spend in the passenger seat to do household chores like this.  People younger than me have done this for some years now.  It is new to me, though.

We grew our hair in the pandemic, and changed our skills profile.  Many  people over 50  made their first payments on the internet during the pandemic - after this wedding we sat with some Scottish cousins, talking about the ‘up-skilling’ we’d done. In our day, there was no such expression.

A growing phenomenon

Post pandemic, the paid content phenomenon is growing.

They were calling it “the passion economy" - but now it seems to be a normal thing amongst younger people to pay to read or watch what they see as exclusive or unusual, or collect digital art that might interest them, and distinguish them from their peers. This is increasingly, self definition - the equivalent of letting our friends browse our bookshelves. 

Erstwhile side-hustles are not yet  full-blown jobs - but some are paying enough to pay the smaller bills: a part of the gig economy, but for the more educated, net savvy population with niche talents.

How does it work?

This is what actually happens -  millions of individuals offer what they do: their videos or photographs, their parody songs, their art, their “done for you solution” to this or that problem, like a LinkedIn profile, or a nifty piece of coding, as ‘content’ for you to consume privately, or buy in for your small business.

Fees for these vary - some are small (a negligible amount for an article well written) or not-so-small (e-book, or a short video series teaching a specialist skill). It all adds up. They use a platform which facilitates this process.

The UPI, a common interface for small transactions in India, scaled up to 2.2 billion monthly transactions in just four years. They continue to grow; usage statistic are on this page.

A cousin of mine got me started on this line of thought - she sent me this picture of a Bangalore vegetable seller accepting mobile payments, on WhatsApp.

Now, in India, UPI is a way of being paid for small amounts, and those who sell digital content are using it too.

Writers artists and other makers of digital goods

The revolution seems to have bypassed writers so far - but stck.me has put in place the infrastructure for this to be a thing of the past.  Now, all kinds of people are taking photographs and writing articles and putting them behind a ‘support me’ pay-wall.  Stck.me allow your name up front on the URL, and have a set of comparator pages with other similar services, on a drop down menu, which is really educational. I’m hesitating about charging.

I’ve been looking at all kinds of businesses all my life - and I think this new way of life is going to grow, longer term.  Mainly because the unbundling of this package has already happened - and the normal five forces, as described by Peter Porter don’t apply - everyone is competing amongst what we would have called goods or services at the ‘commodities’ stage. We value them, but they are ‘granular’ in nature addressing a small part of what might be the client’s problem. 

The threat of substitute products is huge.  We don’t seem to care. But for whom will it work? That is the question.

Is this a retirement supplementation option?

Not really, you might say - more a market for those who are setting out. 

Those aged 18-26 are most worried about security, health, finances, social connections and keeping up with change, an Edelman survey of 36,000 people found.  They grew up in an uncertain world, - the internet is a given in their lives . .  Making a small payment over the internet is a kind of ‘saying thank you’ to a face they don’t know, and most likely never will - they don’t mind that.   Or of course they may be a fan of this person on social media.

They are familiar with the idea of a digital asset - much of where they hang out, is the natural home of this asset type. 

They are posting about what they regard as ‘significant things’, their list of concerns and worries being the significance marker, and being paid small amounts for what they write or photograph. 

The question is : will more experienced people, who are less in the habit of saying to all and sundry ‘please support me’ take to the experiment?  Isn’t that tantamount to begging, we ask.  

But is it? 

Younger people would say that it is sharing our experience, and letting those who choose to imbibe, just doff their caps, with a small financial acknowledgement. 

We can always donate what we earn from such efforts, after all.

They may be right. 

The question is: how many of us are ready to adjust what we think, and adopt their attitude?