But it seems like one industry that has gotten this down is p*rnography? OnlyFans seems to be an enormous processor of micro-transactions for marginal content. Maybe people are just more willing to open wallets for that type of content?
It's interesting to see that even press "rebels" like Substack use a subscription model. You could argue this benefits writers with steady streams of incomes, and that per-purchase would incentivize clickbait and winner-take-all (not 100% sure I agree but could argue it). The more I think about it, the more concerned I am that subscriptions are a psychological trick where people (myself included lol) overly discount future dollars and over-estimate their ability to remember and cancel subscriptions.
The impression I've gotten from articles about OnlyFans is that the business model consists of a mix of monthly subscriptions and pay-per-view content on top of subscriptions, neither of which are typically priced at the levels that would be described as microtransactions. Is that not the case?
Subscriptions create an incentive to keep consuming a particular resource, you don’t need that incentive if your audience already gets an oxytocin/dopamin kick just from seeing your face.
The other industries that got that right are far more morally questionable than pornography: Big Pharma and computer games.