Paying for knowledge takes off twice since the epidemic

　　What is the gold content of fragmented learning?

　　Our reporter Zhao Yuhan

　　When I have breakfast, I read the column about salt selection, listened to Xue Zhaofeng’s economics course on the app while driving, and opened the Himalayan classical music lectures for gym running...

　　In 2020, an epidemic has increased the willingness of people who stay home to pay for content.

"The TV is not turned on for a year, which saves the cost of the set-top box, but the money for various paid courses on the mobile APP adds up to a small three thousand." The white-collar Xiao Yuan counted his expenses last year. The knowledge payment is no longer the same as the fitness investment. Comparable.

As smart phones invade the lives of modern people, the learning methods of young people are becoming more and more fragmented, which makes knowledge realization usher in a golden age.

However, the gold content of paid content tests people's confidence in continuing to pay.

　　Knowing that over 2.5 million paid users in ten years

　　At the 2021 New Knowledge Youth Conference held recently, Zhihu founder and CEO Zhou Yuanliang presented Zhihu’s transcript on payment for knowledge: Zhihu’s monthly active paying users have exceeded 2.5 million, forming a collection of audio and video courses, e-books, A high-value paid content library of journals, papers, and salt selection columns, with a total content of more than 3 million.

　　"Zhihu is no longer a professional answer in the stereotype. It also has videos, live broadcasts, and even online novels." Recently, Xiao Yuan has become obsessed with reading novels at Zhihu.

　　Lao Liang is a heavy-knowing user. From the time he bought a smartphone, the blue icon of the APP has been stuck on the first page of his phone.

"There are so many social platforms as stars, but whenever you encounter major events, you will still check in at Zhihu, browse your views and share insights here."

　　Back in 2011, Zhihu invited some people with professional literacy in a certain field to register with the invitation code, including Li Kaifu, Ma Huateng, Wang Xiaochuan, etc.

It wasn't until 2013 that Zhihu began to open registration to the public, and the number of users soared. In 2018, the number of users exceeded 220 million.

　　And Zhihu has also undergone changes, and commercialization is an inevitable topic of survival.

In 2016, the concept of payment for knowledge emerged, which naturally fits the attribute of knowledge.

As a result, Zhihu has successively launched Zhihu Live, Value, and the membership system "Salt Selection Program", so that creators can realize content monetization more decently.

In addition, Zhihu is constantly expanding its boundaries, focusing on short video, live broadcast, web text and other fields.

　　Pan-knowledge payment epidemic after the epidemic

　　At the beginning of 2020, an epidemic increased the willingness of people who stayed home to pay for content, and payment for knowledge took off again.

　　Chen Wuyu, the creator of Zhihu, who earned 20,000 yuan a month for writing articles, recalled the days at the beginning of last year: "Although I posted less frequently than before, my monthly income rushed to more than 20,000 yuan for the first time, and has basically maintained it since then. Such a monthly income."

　　The reporter noticed that as platforms such as Zhihu and Himalaya continue to expand their boundaries, the pan-knowledge payment trend has grown, attracting more diverse audiences.

According to estimates by iiMedia Consulting, the scale of the payment for knowledge industry will exceed 39.2 billion yuan in 2020, a year-on-year increase of 41%.

　　But the renewed popularity of payment for knowledge is also different from earlier years.

"The first two years were spent using fragmented time to learn brainwashing and bought a bunch of courses, but it was difficult to really learn it." Zhang Yuan, a citizen, lamented. Nowadays, she is more willing to pay for her interests and her purpose is not so strong.

"It's mainly science lectures, maybe some articles with strong opinions, or serialized literary works."

　　In Zhihu, more and more diversified content has also become a portrayal of pan-knowledge payment.

In addition to audio and video courses, e-books, journals and papers, Zhihu also has online articles.

Author Qi Yueli's 200,000-character work "Washing Leading Flowers: The Path to Survival of Vicious Female Matches" was launched in the salt selection column last year, and received nearly 400,000 yuan in less than a month.

　　And platforms that also aim at pan-knowledge payments include Himalaya and other platforms.

Last year, in addition to various courses, there were more diversified categories of Himalayan content, with new content including two-dimensional, games, cuteness and other entertainment content, as well as personal enhancement content such as speeches and scientific history.

In addition, the platform also launched related content for female users' growth, love, beauty and health.

　　The content of the content of the paid knowledge competition

　　There are more and more people paying for pan-knowledge, but the characteristic of knowledge is that if you buy it, you will get it.

　　After 1985, Zeng Lin was keen to buy herself English, finance and other improvement courses in the first two years.

"It feels like everyone around me is using fragmented time to learn, and I can't fall behind." But after a period of "fragmented learning", Zeng Lin found that she didn't seem to learn too much.

"Some courses are not of high quality, and I gave up less than half of them. Even if there is good content, using fragmented time to learn and not focusing enough, the effect is actually half the effort."

　　More and more knowledge paying users who were once anxious like Zeng Lin began to examine themselves, and their payment behavior became cautious.

Because of this, even though the epidemic has triggered the second take-off of payment for knowledge, there are still platforms for payment for knowledge that have fallen.

Recently, the "Wukong Q&A" that ByteDance invested 2 billion yuan in subsidies announced that it will cease operations on February 3.

A week ago, another pay-for-knowledge product under ByteDance, "Learn Hard", also announced that it would cease operations on January 20.

　　Analysys recently released the "2020 Audio Pan-knowledge Paid Market Analysis Report" that the 2020 epidemic will increase people’s demand for online learning and self-improvement, and knowledge payment has taken off again, but the content of content is the key to the field of knowledge payment, and it also requires Focus on subdividing user groups.

For users, they must be judged on the value of paid courses, audio and video content, and don't be paid for "cutting leeks" by poor quality knowledge.