From VIP to SVIP, what are iQiyi, Youku and Tencent Video worried about?

From VIP to SVIP, the charging model of long video platforms has been continuously upgraded, but the user experience does not seem to have been improved accordingly. This article will explore the business logic behind long video platforms and the market anxiety they face, as well as the potential impact of this strategy on consumer rights.

It has to be said that the rights and interests of members on long video platforms are becoming more and more infringing.

I originally signed up for membership just to skip ads and see more content in advance. These are the only two requirements. Can you guys still play "nesting dolls" here? !

A few days ago, a piece of news about iQiyi's "basic members cannot skip the 120-second ad at the beginning of the film" angered consumers. "Members can't skip the ads, and if they want to skip them, they have to pay extra to upgrade?! If you don't have a membership, will you not even be eligible to open the website in the future..."

iQiyi also responded to consumers' complaints, which roughly means: if you want to become a member but don't want to spend more money, you have to watch ads; if you don't want to watch ads, you can pay more to upgrade to a gold member...

Great, great, they not only collect membership fees from users, but also earn advertising fees from advertisers. What a business genius!

The recent hit on Tencent Video, Joy of Life 2, follows the same pattern: the first few episodes are free for a limited time, and then only VIP members can watch them. If you want to watch more episodes, you have to upgrade to SVIP. Isn’t this a bit like the “advanced screening” formula of the past? And even if you become a member, you still see all the ads you should watch.

There are also paid easter eggs from Mango TV, Youku’s closing gift, etc. You thought you had become a member, but in fact there are super memberships and super super memberships!

However, despite the fact that this kind of nesting doll-style charging has been criticized many times and even named by the Consumer Association, the platforms seem to not care! They are even unscrupulous and continue to charge in disguised forms.

In fact, this is partly due to the exclusive content moat they have built.

Since 2013, when video copyrights were taken seriously, piracy has become unacceptable. In order to seize the market, long video platforms began to purchase a large amount of copyrighted content or make their own exclusive series, so these exclusive contents became their confidence in controlling users. For consumers, if they want to watch these contents, they can only be led by the platform!

On the other hand, this nesting charging model also reflects the anxiety of long video platforms.

In the past 10 years, long video platforms have almost been burning money. iQiyi, Youku and Tencent Video have burned more than 100 billion in 10 years. It was not until 2022 that iQiyi achieved full-year profitability for the first time, ending 11 years of losses; and Tencent Video only started to make money in October 22.

But after solving the profit problem, the platform still has to face the problem of slowing growth in paying users. In addition to the rise of short videos, it also has to deal with the competition for user time from Douyin and Kuaishou.

Therefore, in order to maintain the momentum of development, SVIP, a "serial harvesting service", has become a new business growth point for platforms.

To put it nicely, we can only sacrifice member benefits in order to achieve growth.

However, the current paying users are the breadwinners of the long video platform. If the platform only takes advantage of these members to increase its revenue, it is obviously not a long-term strategy.

For consumers, I am like a leek and I don’t even feel the pain when you pull me too much!

VIP users can't even skip ads, this is forcing me to watch pirated content~