Monetization

How can a news platform make money in the digital age? In the early days of the web, before things settled into the targeted advertising model we all know and dislike, this was a hotly debated topic. Some people wanted people to pay small amounts for articles, while others thought ads or paywalls would work better.

Some of the world’s largest corporations were founded on the business model of monitoring their users and targeting ads based on this information. Pay-per-impression advertising is another profitable but problematic business model. This creates an incentive for content to be more impulsive, divisive, and inaccurate. The media expert Ryan Holiday wrote in his book, _Trust Me, I’m Lying, _that “in the pay-per-pageview model, every post is a conflict of interest.”

Bloggers have a direct incentive to write bigger, simpler, more controversially or favorably, to write without having to do any work, and to write more frequently than is warranted. Their salary is at stake. “It’s no surprise they’re vicious, irresponsible, incorrect, and dishonest.” This economic system is at its most pure when fake news writers make up completely made-up stories to get people’s attention and clicks.

There has been a shift in recent years toward subscription-based business models. Tyler Cowan, an economist, has written that the subscription model encourages consistently high-quality content, whether the subscription is to the platform itself (like Netflix) or to a specific content creator (like Patreon).

We project that subscriptions will be the largest of Mindplex’s multiple revenue streams:

• Subscription fees from Premium Accounts.
• Licensing fees from third parties, who use our AI services as plugins and web extensions. We are already in talks with some potential users of this technology.
• Sponsored Content/Affiliate Links
• User-friendly advertising