Articles

The rise of paywalls

Search and social media have sucked up most of the world's ad revenue;

Jon Cherry

Mar 4, 2021 • 2 min read

Have you noticed how expensive the web is becoming?

Back in 2007 everything was free - everything was paid for by online advertising.

The New York Times, Bloomberg, FT, apps that you needed to make podcasts, platforms on which you chose to write blog posts - all free.

Now almost every content producer is putting up a paywall. At $5 a subscription multiplied many times over, things are starting to get expensive.

For now Cherryflava.com is still free - that's because our premium content gets sold as keynote presentations (both online and in-person) and also via our monthly subscription briefings.

But for the web, search and social media have sucked up most of the world's ad revenue; leaving everyone else to scramble to make ends meet with paywalls. Read more here.

“The internet has changed, and savvy media consumers know that quality digital content that’s worth your time is also worth your support. Because a model based solely on advertising exposes our storytelling capabilities to market forces we can’t control. And because we want to build the kind of connection, loyalty and trust with our digital audience we’ve long had with the magazine,” Sports Illustrated said in a letter to readers.

We forecast that paid-for-curation would have a big year in 2021, which is exactly what so many content creators are choosing to do.

Google and Facebook are largely to blame for the web becoming so expensive, as well as marketers who are so easily lured by big numbers.

Paywalls are on the rise - so prepare to pay an increasing amount for the content that you value. The free web is a thing of the past.