As consumers desire greater control over how they spend their attention, an emerging biz model will be paying for ongoing access to *people*–or what I’ll call “Community-as-a-Service.” There’s now lots of subscription services for high-quality premium content (Substack for newsletters; Knowable & Luminary for audio, etc). But for creators who lack the ability to sell something tangible, Community-as-a-Service enables monetizing *time* and *access*. Examples of Communities-as-a-Service: Tools like InviteRobot & LaunchPass enable paid Slack groups Knowledge Planet in China allows KOLs to create paid groups & interact w/ subscribers Video games: people pay for status & attention in communities like Twitch, Fortnite, etc The Community-as-a-Service model can combine paid subscriptions for access to the community itself, and tipping to express support/appreciation (including admins tipping community members for valuable contributions!). Not every community can successfully charge for access. The paid model works best when there’s high intentionality (the community is a destination), desire for recognition within the community, peer-to-peer affinity & interactions, and potential for ongoing exchange of value. For fans, the value prop is meaningful conversations and connection with each other and deeper engagement w/ someone they have affinity for. For creators, the benefit is being able to earn money and engage with fans, without having to produce something. Deeper trends driving this: Creators have amassed audiences but lack ways to monetize it in a value-aligned way (not ads) Desire for creators to own user relationships directly Move towards curated micro-communities Value of experience over things Originally published as “ Community-as-a-Service, or how to monetize access "

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Community-as-a-Service Concept: How You Can Monetize Access

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