-Freemuim-
As far as I know, the most successful freemium business is in Bilibili. The development of its freemium service is a huge psychological game, like the frog-boiling effect.
At the first step of Bilibili’s development, there were two highlights: totally free ACGN sources and a strict inbound qualification test. It is not similar to most websites in that people can register as users only with a phone number and get access to all resources by paying for a subscription, the user identification of Bilibili, which represents the eligibility to send bullet comments (danmu/danmaku) in videos and watch all animation works provided by Bilibili, can be got only after you finishing a One-hundred-questions test and getting over sixty questions correct. The questions were all about ACGN culture and needed to be answered within a limited time, which made it impossible to search them online one by one. In other words, only people who were ACGN geeks and shared the same faith with each other can enter this platform. Under these two policies, users’ trust was gradually constructed as this platform brought respect and superiority to users. They used niche inside-Bilibili terms and became a tightly tied community.
Even during the bubble economy period in the last century in Japan, the ACGN industry was barely affected by the economic environment and even started its international spread based on global fans’ demands and love. Similarly, this “free” step is the heart of Bilibili’s development which was rooted in ACGN fans’ power. Unites based on cash can be easily broken by cash, but communities rooted in faith and love can be considered as an iron wall. Moreover, Bilibili’s originator as well as an ACGN fan, Chen Yi, announced that Bilibili would never run any ads and would always offer a warm home and protection to every ACGN fan. When these users started to feel belonging on Bilibili and being connected with other users, they would be very hard to abandon this platform.
From 2011 to 2015, Bilibili successfully completed financing and formally started to purchase different animation copyrights to enrich the content on the platform. Compared with the former source-sharing model, Bilibili paid more attention to original content from uploaders.
When frogs were in the pot, the fire under it silently rose. In the second step, based on the expanding financial demand, this platform which had promised never to run advertisements started to run advertisements. But Bilibili’s users easily forgave this platform because they understood that unprofitable mode can not support its operation and they didn’t want to lose their only home in which they wouldn’t be regarded as freaks. They still believed that the platform was on their side.
In 2017, Bilibili released a function that users could pay to watch the new season animation earlier than other users who didn’t spend money. In 2018, because of some “technological problems”, Bilibili pulled 37 Japanese animations off shelves. When these works were re-listed on shelves, users found that these animations, except their first episode, became only available to paid users. In the third step, the Free Era of Bilibili finally died, and the Freemium Era was born.
From this moment, frogs, or users, realised something had gone wrong. They posted negative comments to accuse Chen of losing his heart, but unsurprisingly, few of them chose to leave Bilibili. They already couldn’t leave the unique functions of Bilibili. Besides, the dense ACGN cultural atmosphere was also unreplicable no matter for a short or long time as ACGN was no longer as discriminated as before, so the new generation of ACGN fans, who just entered Bilibili in its Freemium Era, had no freemasonry feelings with each other anymore.
At the end, Bilibili successfully finished its commercialisation transformation, and amazingly performed a milestone achievement of the freemium utilisation. By 2024 quarter one, its monthly active users exceeded 341 million.
But can the success of Bilibili be permanently maintained? As I mentioned, the core attractive points of Bilibili are the bullet comment function and its ACGN atmosphere. Nowadays, other platforms have also developed duplicate functions. Some video platforms even forestalled to monopolise the rights-to-broadcast of some popular animations. In this situation, might be because of Bilibili’s anxiety or just because of its greed, Bilibili invoked the short video function and added many blocks having no relation to ACGN. When scrolling short videos, ads appear every three to four videos. The platform even indulged some non-ACGN-related users to ruin the ecology of original users communities.
Maybe these situations are the labour pain of its target user transformation under the freemium model, but, when heart broken veteran users leave and the left users have low-loyalty, how long can Bilibili continue its thrive when it is gradually convergenting with other platforms?
Hey Joy! I find your question interesting. In your post, you mentioned that Bilibili is a successful business example of freemium. However, as it undergoes transformation and faces the loss of ACGN users, Bilibili's continuous thrive is questionable.
ReplyDeleteI agree that some users and even creators are leaving Bilibili because the Bilibili ecology has changed, with a huge influx of users with different interests and Bilibili's shift to a mass-market short video platform. Nevertheless, I think other important factors need to be considered when analyzing if Bilibili will continue to be successful.
First, you mentioned that free animations played a significant role in the success of Bilibili. However, what can’t be ignored is that offering animations is not Bilibili's only function, even at its early stage. Users can upload videos whether it is original or not, high-quality user-generated content has attracted more users (not limited to ACG fans) to Bilibili. Besides, as it is influenced deeply by Japanese ACG culture, subcultures on Bilibili also set it apart from other video platforms and make Bilibili appealing, for example, auto-tune remix-themed content (鬼畜).
Second, though Bilibili is transforming and some old users are leaving, new users and creators are bringing diverse content to this platform. Themes of Bilibili continue to expand, from anime to movies, drama, and video games. Besides, while Bilibili and other video platforms share some similarities, at least for now, I think Bilibili is still unique. Bilibili still puts emphasis on ACG and pop culture content while other platforms have different focuses (e.g., iQIYI focuses on dramas and TV shows). They are indeed converging, but they are not completely duplicating others as they target different users.
Last but not least, Bilibili may be a disappointment to some loyal ACGN fans, however, when taking a more holistic view, it is commercially successful regarding its number of users and avenues, and transformation may not be negative.
Again, your question is thought-provoking, thanks for sharing!