Mobile transactions now dominate the way people pay for goods (see chart below). As a result, digital micropayments have become practical for the very first time. Big technological investments and shifts (e.g. bio-metrics on smartphones for secure transactions) are all pointing towards an even more seamless experience for users.
It is no wonder then that there is unprecedented amount of innovation in payments around the world. From India's UPI – a standard for bank to bank transactions that has scaled to 1.5B monthly transactions in just four years to blockchain solutions threatening traditional banks' monopoly over moving money across borders, today we have access to affordable, scalable, and reliable payments infrastructure capable of transforming how quickly and easily businesses and individuals can achieve global scale.
At ScrollStack.com, we have set out to use the underlying infrastructure revolution to make paying for content as easy as buying a physical product on Amazon. It's easier to sell a $500 smart watch today, but it's very difficult for a creator to charge $1 or INR 25 for a 2500 word long piece. It shouldn't be this hard. Our mission is make it easy for creators to charge small amounts for their content, and sell their content to a global audience.
ScrollStack.com is the first step on this journey. Creators can charge their followers in Indian Rupees, Dollars, and Euros with prices as low as Rs. 10 in India and US $1 or €1 elsewhere. This will enable a global marketplace for content that allows creators to convert their social media followership into meaningful monetization. Check out why we built ScrollStack for more on that.
The market for content is inherently global as Netflix, YouTube and others have shown. We want to bring the same global ability to charge to every creator. Here is a brief preview of how we are approaching it.
In India, UPI is King/Queen - whoever is more powerful.
If you haven't heard of UPI, read this. It is so powerful yet utilitarian, Google asked the US Congress to adopt it for the US. Indians use UPI to pay for everything - INR 10 for their chai to their nifty scooters costing up to INR 100,000. It's realtime, and comes with almost no transaction charges. At ScrollStack, creators are already charging anywhere from INR 10 to INR 100 for their individual posts and seeing success in getting their followers to pay them.
In Rest of the World, Big Tech to the rescue.
Apple Pay and Google Pay are poised to remove majority of the friction from micropayments globally. Anyone who has used public transport in London or New York knows how easy it is to pay small amounts using Apple Pay. iTunes made it a no brainer for people to pay for individual songs, and Apple Pay and Google Pay will do the same for digital content as well.
Emerging blockchain powered, global payments.
There are encouraging early signs of blockchain powered payments going mainstream after years of development. Companies like SatoshiPay are making it incredibly easy for people to pay very small amounts to unlock content on any website. Platforms like ours will start to adopt it, and scale to millions of users, without adding any friction or outrageous fees. This will further unlock millions of passion economy creators to start charging small amounts for works they create.
There has never been a better time to be a creator with content that's worth paying for. Widespread COVID 19 and the long wait for vaccine also means people will spend a lot of time on the Internet and will look for content that makes them better at something, smarter, or entertains them beyond their Netflix queues.
So creators around the world, what are you waiting for? Start creating, and monetising - platforms like ScrollStack.com and others have you covered. We have tools that take the operational pain away, and let you focus on what you do best.
Write to me at ritesh@scrollstack.com if you want to part of our early beta at ScrollStack.com.
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