Paying For Social: It’s All Or Nothing
As someone who has spent the best part of a decade building a social network alternative to the big, ad-driven social platforms, my DMs have been particularly lively recently with people asking for my thoughts on Meta and Twitter introducing paid subscription tiers. What does this mean for the social landscape of the future? How does this impact VERO? Did I feel worried or validated? More or less certain about VERO’s path?
I’ve been outspoken about how the attention economy business model has adversely affected the quality of the social networks billions of us now use, but I maintain a very positive view of what social can be if we can, together, shift from a focus on platforms that are optimized for engagement — i.e. monetizing eyeballs — to platforms and spaces that prioritize connection and nurture strong, sustainable communities.
I have long believed that a paid membership model is the only social network model that can properly align the interests of the user and the platform. If a business adopts an advertising revenue model, there’s an extremely powerful tide pulling on the business and the business inevitably caters to the interests of those paying the business. And that’s to be expected — as a business you should work for those who are paying you. Paid membership is the answer precisely because the people paying for the service are the people using and building the service.
So, I’m glad to see that ‘big social’ are adopting paid membership business models — I think it’s the future — but there are big question marks over the implementation as we’re seeing it.
What paying members are being asked to pay for — like customer support if you’re being impersonated — are all things that should be a given, rights that everyone should expect, automatically. Users are now being charged a fee to re-establish a sense of trust with other users on the platform, in addition to the advertising dollars the users are making for the platform. If the truism used to be “if you’re not paying for the product, you are the product,” it seems now like a case of “if you are paying for the product, you’re still the product”.
Social tech can support our well-being, it can strengthen our sense of community and it can connect us with opportunities to learn and evolve. And I’m not talking about a far-out utopia here, it’s just a simple value exchange, built for the user …that really benefits the user.
Meta and Twitter may be moving in the right direction in terms of a paid model, yes, but it’s got to be all or nothing. That’s why we, at VERO, are still committed to our paid membership model, but doing it the right way — a model which guarantees no ads and offers a standardised service to all.
So, here’s VERO’s approach for a better, truly fair, paid membership model for a sustainable social network:
- Trust: be upfront with the payment structure and how the platform is monetized.
- Respect: prioritize and respect member data privacy and safety.
- Community: listen to the community to determine the best path forward.
- Connection: give users direct access to one another, without the interruption of algorithms or advertising.
- Creativity: give creative control to members — no algorithms to outwit, no ads impacting work, no interrupted feeds, no cropping or specs to abide by.
- Accountability: look after the community and stay true to that duty of care.
Nearly ten years on from co-founding VERO, I still believe there is a societal need for a social network that offers data privacy, creator-first tools and uninterrupted connection, funded directly by members — rather than advertising dollars. A paid membership model implemented in the right way, for the right reasons, is the most viable way to operate a sustainable social network model for the long-term benefit of us all. We all deserve better.
