The reach and ubiquity of internet and mobile phones have democratized content creation and consumption, and for good reasons. If you think about it, the following simple hierarchy exists for content.
The lower you are in this inverted pyramid, the more valuable you are. The higher up you are, the more dispensable you are.
Also, there is no competition at the consumer level. The more the merrier. Since consumers pay indirectly with their time and attention (to watch Ads mostly), so more people is always good. But as we move down, the competition increases. How many Cooking channels can get popular, how many fashion blogs, or DIY channels, or Political pages? Here the more is not merrier (for the creators). Here more means competition. And the same goes for the Platforms and Infrastructure companies as well. In fact there are only a handful of big infrastructure companies, so it’s nearly a monopoly there.
Since the reach of the internet and mobile phones continues to expand, all categories above are growing. But what will happen afterwards? What will happen once everyone is connected and that number stops growing?
Could there be a situation that the people will start getting paid for consuming content?
OR
Will the free model go away and the content will always have to be paid for?
What else might happen? What are your thoughts about the future?
