Does the future of content marketing lie with cryptocurrency micropayments?

Globally, media is hitting new lows with each passing day. Clickbait, fake news, yellow journalism, name it, journalism today is riddled with all these malaise. People everywhere have gotten sick of the sub-par content that is pushed down their throats in the name of journalism. Also, their unwillingness to pay for good content or reluctance to being tied down to a single publisher, have only worsened the situation. While clickbait finds it more comfortable to generate revenues owing to its traditional ad models, subscriptions and paywalls have so far failed to replicate that success. Under such circumstances, cryptocurrency content marketing through micropayments seems like the only viable option.

What are micropayments?

Micropayments provide the users the choice to support high-quality content without locking them into single, long-term subscriptions. It enables you to spend a small amount each time you view an article. It also motivates the publishers to produce excellent content which satisfies the audience. If the user feels the material lacks sublimity, he will stop paying for the articles in future. Therefore, it increases the accountability of the publishers towards what they write and how they present it.

What are the challenges to micropayments?

The issue with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is that they take a lot of computing power and so many small transactions would incur considerable fees. If a significant portion of the funding is eaten up in fees, it serves little purpose to the entire funding program.

However, several organizations are using channels to get around this flaw. Instead of recording every transaction to the blockchain and paying for every single one of them, the blockchain records channel payments as a collection. It can be understood as a situation in a restaurant wherein instead of being charged for each dish separately, you are charged together for everything that you had ordered. It saves you the hassle of paying for every individual item each time and pay for your entire order once and collectively.

After the creation of a micropayment channel, a few Bitcoins are stored in it, and the sender signs each payment. The receiver has the option to either withdraw each approved amount or wait until the channel is closed and then pull out the total amount. If the receiver waits until the channel is closed and only records the final amount to the blockchain, it slashes the number of transactions, thereby making it more efficient and cost-effective.

Peer-to-peer micro micropayments are soon gaining traction among users and have emerged as an ideal model of funding. Imagine how much money you can raise through millions of minuscule payments of 25 cents or 50 cents. They may seem small, but they eventually add up. Micropayments, alone cannot ensure free content, but they can indeed provide a market to the users who want quality content not influenced by the ad money.