To find a balance between consumption and knowledge
——Young people in the trend of online payment for knowledge
Walk into the subway, put on headphones, and Shuhan, a young man born in the 1990s, opens an English learning app.
After purchasing 800 "word caps", he started a day of learning.
He is a graduate of the University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. While preparing to study abroad, he purchased online courses, downloaded note-taking software, opened a membership of a knowledge website, and paid to participate in five or six online lectures.
On Shuhan’s mobile phone, the application downloaded for learning occupies a full screen. For the online class alone, he has already spent more than 5,000 yuan-“pay for knowledge, it’s worth it.” This idea is not unique to him. , But gradually became the consensus of the youth group.
According to the data of iiMedia Consulting, since 2017, the market scale of China's payment for knowledge industry has expanded rapidly, reaching 39.2 billion yuan in 2020 and is expected to reach 67.5 billion yuan by 2021.
Behind these seemingly simple changes, online orders, virtual products, and consumption anytime and anywhere, are the profound changes caused by multiple factors on young people.
1. Demand: Pay for practical and interesting knowledge services
Type "civil service examination" in the search box and press Enter. What you see is a bunch of colorful and indistinguishable advertisements.
Li Zhou, a civil servant born in the 90s who is already working in the organization department of a certain municipal party committee, said: "So you understand why I chose to spend money to attend classes? Now the information is dazzling, and the cost of identification and screening is too high, and I have no choice. Don’t focus on exam preparation."
What Li Zhou said by "spending money to attend lectures" refers to paying to participate in online experience lectures and purchasing courses. After payment, experienced teachers, seniors and sisters usually share exam preparation, question-making skills and interview strategies.
Lectures and courses usually list the outline in the introduction to provide consumers with options for different needs.
How to choose?
The courses Li Zhou purchased on the "Chalk" app are the epitome of her consumer preferences-"Common Sense High Score Special Course", "Applying Theory Breakthrough 70 Points Novice Special Training Camp", recitation methods, problem-solving skills, template sharing, It's like a detailed manual, you can get started after listening, and you can solve the problem by getting started.
"Practicality is the most important thing. I don't really value the background of the lecturer. What I care about is whether the information provided by the course is comprehensive enough, whether the content is targeted, and whether it can solve my current problems." She said.
Li Zhou is not alone. In fact, many young people are being plagued by miscellaneous information.
Research conducted by Penguin Think Tank, "Report on the Paid for Knowledge Economy: How many Chinese netizens are willing to spend money to buy experience?
"It is pointed out that in the era of excessive information emergence and information reception overload, difficulty in quickly obtaining valuable information has become a new pain point.
Media person Agu has been learning French on the Duolingo app for more than 300 days. When it comes to the secrets of persisting in learning, she frankly said that the refinement, fun and personalization of the software are the key.
"It will first pass a quiz to measure my current level, combined with my study time to help me make a learning plan. Every day learning is designed to break through." In the interface displayed by Agu, the upper part is the learning progress, and the middle Most of the questions are filled-in-the-blank questions, no long reading, no complicated thinking, every time it is a correct question, the lovely sound effect sounds, and the praise pops up from the bottom "Very good!" "Awesome!" "More At that time, I was treated like a child. Someone helped me draw the key points and some people helped me solve the problems. I only need to make a simple memory to get positive feedback." Agu believes that this is not learning strictly speaking. It is the knowledge service obtained after payment.
Scholar Lu Chunchun pointed out in the article "Knowledge Payment: Features, Causes and Effects": "After the third industrial revolution, the division of labor in society has become more and more refined, and technological innovation has become more complex and specialized, making knowledge It is becoming more and more difficult for producers to adopt independent labor and individualized production methods, and the production method of knowledge products has also been transformed into an industrialized production method.” In this context, consumer demand has become the basic orientation of product producers, regardless of whether it is a system. Some people are willing to pay for the information management or interesting knowledge services.
2. Value: Pursue ideal self in competition
Nowadays, social competition is becoming increasingly fierce, and many young people are burdened with a strong sense of crisis. "Knowledge thirst and anxiety" has become a collective feature of this generation.
After the public examination came ashore, Li Zhou did not stop studying. She purchased a paid unlimited card for the WeChat reading application and put several books on the world situation and current affairs on her virtual bookshelf.
"Don't dare to stop!" Li Zhou said: "After work, I find that I don't understand more. If I don't learn, I may fall behind." She said frankly, "I have just completed the transition from a college student to a working person, and sometimes I feel that Confused and confused. Sometimes I don’t know what to do, so I can only continue the habit of my school days and read and study first. This may be useless, but at least I maintain a positive state, so that I can still have a sense of my life. Taking control makes me convinced that I am an aggressive person."
Chi Jingmin, a doctoral student from the School of Sociology and Anthropology of Sun Yat-sen University, in his thesis, based on the analysis framework of the French philosopher Foucault's "self-entrepreneur", deeply explored the social and cultural implications behind the consumption behavior of the younger generation.
The article points out that the laborer is both the owner of human capital and the producer of labor products, and his human capital is the income-generating machine.
When the institutional environment in which the market places more emphasis on the regulatory role of the market, individuals are forced to be more responsible for themselves, and through various efforts to improve their own market competitiveness.
Gao Baohua, a researcher at the Institute of Service and Trade of the Institute of International Trade and Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce, pointed out the practical problems more directly: the current social development is changing with each passing day, and the pressure of young people to survive is increasing. In a social environment full of competition and challenges, “self-entrepreneurs” need By constantly recharging themselves to improve their human capital and maintain their competitiveness.
In fact, Li Zhou's payment needs are not limited to work. Many of the courses and books she subscribes to can be classified into the art category, such as film, history, literature and even comics skills teaching.
She will post her hand-painted works in the circle of friends and share book reviews.
In her eyes, these pure and unrelated knowledge will calm her, and the significance of paying to learn them is that she can use the guidance of professionals to expand her horizons and understand new areas of knowledge.
"It's because of interest and a little selfishness. After all, society is developing rapidly now. I hope I have more skills. If my job does not go well someday, I have other choices." Li Zhou said.
3. Growth: purchase is the end of consumption, but it is the beginning of learning
On January 13, 2021, Zhihu founder and CEO Zhou Yuan announced the growth data of paid business at the 2021 New Knowledge Youth Conference. The number of monthly active paying users of Zhihu has exceeded 2.5 million, including audio and video courses, e-books, etc. The total number of paid content exceeds 3 million.
Among the active users of Zhihu, the proportion of 18-35-year-old youths is about 75%.
Online consumption based on knowledge needs is becoming a widely used information interaction mode among young intellectuals.
Shuhan recalled the English intensive reading training camp he had paid to participate in. After the daily study, the app will pop up the check-in sharing link, and there will be rewards for persisting in the check-in sharing.
"I remember a period of time when the circle of friends slipped down, all of them were punch-in links for everyone, saying how many days they have been studying, this is actually a kind of pressure on other people." Even now, slogans spreading anxiety are everywhere. They either use hints-"You can be what you want to be through consumption", or they use peer pressure-"Your peers are all learning" to continuously stimulate consumers' buying psychology.
With the wave of consumerism coming, young people who lack social experience often have nowhere to hide.
There are also many young people who are sitting on the sidelines.
On Douban.com, groups such as the "Federation of Stingy Women", "Federation of Stingy Men", "Don't Buy Consumerism Retrogrades", and "Crazy Save Money Group" have gathered more than one million young people. They exchange products in the community. Cost-effective, mutual recommendation of knowledge products, exchange of money-saving skills.
Purchase is the end of consumption, but it is the beginning of learning.
According to Yi Shaohua, Director of the Market Circulation and Consumption Research Office of the Academy of Financial and Economic Strategy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the actual utilization rate of some consumers after purchasing knowledge products is not high. It may be impulsive and blind purchase, or it may be due to actual needs and knowledge products purchased. Does not match.
Gao Baohua believes: "Unlike physical products, knowledge products are subjective and require the participation of consumers to complete the entire consumption process after purchase. How to measure the quality of products provided by merchants requires relevant departments to formulate corresponding regulatory standards, and consumers can also Give consumer feedback through comments, scoring, etc."
For young consumers, "paying for knowledge" cannot be equated with "enterprising" and "profound", and money has never been a true and effective filter for knowledge.
As Douban netizen "Unexpired Sugar" said in the group message: "People can borrow materials to express themselves, instead of letting materials determine themselves. What matters is never what we consume, but what we consume for."
(Cao Yanan reporter Liu Kun)