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Today, I want to talk about monetization. Monetization is the process of turning a social media presence, audience, or content into a source of income. As a public librarian, I see every day how this shapes the information we consume. Platforms like YouTube and Twitter don’t just host content; their business models also decide what gets promoted and who sees it. Ad-supported platforms thrive on attention. The more time we spend scrolling, the more ads they can sell. This encourages sensational, polarizing content that keeps people clicking, even if accuracy or educational value takes a back seat. Captions on videos like “You’ll never believe what happens next!!” intrigue us, even if we know it's clickbait. I feel like every video on YouTube has some crazy caption or attention-grabbing thumbnail. This rewards shallow or misleading content, which in turn encourages creators to prioritize engagement over accuracy or quality. I have a 12-year-old who watches YouTube, and some of his favorite videos are “shorts,” which quickly explain something in the news in less than a minute. The problem is, where are these creators getting this information from, and is it true information? Because the clip is so short, he scrolls to the following clip immediately, and then it's more of the same thing.
Unlike ad-driven platforms that prioritize clicks over accuracy, subscription services like The New York Times reverse this model by generating revenue directly from readers rather than advertisers. Their priority is to provide enough value to keep subscribers renewing month after month, which often results in higher-quality, well-researched, and ad-free content. However, this model also creates barriers for those who can’t afford recurring fees, turning reliable information into something of a luxury. I often see patrons come into the library frustrated after hitting a paywall, asking if we have access to the article or publication they need. This shows how subscription models can unintentionally widen the knowledge gap, leaving those without disposable income at a disadvantage and making libraries even more essential as equalizers in the information landscape.
Social network sites make all of this even more powerful by encouraging users to build detailed profiles. As Boyd and Ellison (2007) note, SNSs, or social network sites, are designed to let individuals “construct a public or semi-public profile… articulate a list of other users… and view and traverse their list of connections.” These profiles and connections aren’t just for socializing; they’re valuable data points that platforms use to target ads and personalize feeds, keeping users engaged (and monetized) even longer. All social media sites and games you download ask if you want to link your contacts so they can suggest friends, map your social network, and collect data to personalize content and target ads, even for people who haven’t signed up themselves.
Then there’s data-driven targeting, used by many companies, but the two masters at it are Amazon and Spotify. They collect detailed behavioral data to build profiles and serve hyper-personalized recommendations. It keeps us engaged, but it can also trap us in filter bubbles and limit exposure to new ideas. Spotify Wrapped is a perfect example of this. It is an annual feature that gives users a personalized summary of their listening habits, including their top songs, artists, genres, and total minutes listened. It’s designed to be shareable, encouraging users to post their results on social media and engage with the platform. I am not immune to this; I eagerly await the day it drops to see which artist I've listened to the most and what my top songs are. Then, I post it on Instagram. The problem with Spotify Wrapped is that it relies on extensive data tracking of everything you listen to, which raises privacy concerns. It also reinforces algorithm-driven habits, potentially narrowing what people explore by highlighting the same artists and genres they already favor instead of encouraging discovery. This, in my opinion, is one of the biggest problems of them all. When you are so enveloped in a little bubble that you don't see any other perspectives or points of view, it is incredibly easy to have a low tolerance for anything or anyone different from you.
Believe it or not, all of this changes how we read. Ad-driven platforms teach us to skim; subscription models risk turning in-depth information into a luxury. And data-driven systems chip away at privacy, which is a core library value. This is why access to reliable information should be a right, not a product. If we leave it entirely up to monetized platforms, we risk an information landscape driven by clicks, subscriptions, and algorithms, not by what people genuinely need to know.
I completely understand the allure of YouTube shorts. It's definitely very easy to get mindlessly wrapped up in watching them, especially since they auto-scroll after one video is finished! They're perfectly fine as entertainment, but I'd definitely be wary about getting news from them, especially since YouTube is so geared toward generating views.
ReplyDeleteYour note about the New York Times' paywalls is really important, and speaks to a wider trend of locking quality information behind paywalls. I actually did some research on this for a class in my previous semester, and it's astounding to see how prevalent the paywall locking model is. I focused particularly on how paywalls prevent people from seeking out quality health information, but the problem pervades across all subjects. It unfortunately makes sense that people would turn to quick and easy solutions such as YouTube and TikTok to get answer. It's not like YouTube and TikTok have 0% quality content, of course--we just need to keep their structures in mind.
Hi Rachel, thanks for this insightful post! The part that stood out to me most was weighing the pros and cons of getting free, fast information or higher quality information hidden behind a paywall. It would be ideal if the most high quality information was free and hopefully social media companies will start doing that and find other ways to monetize that don't shut out users or rely on gimmicks that confuse users. It's frustrating that there's no perfect system and so many pros and cons, even with data tracking. In my experience, many social media apps have an "ask not to track" option or terms you have to agree to, but I know that sometimes there are other sneaky ways they can collect your data and that realistically no one reads all the fine print. I've even found this with the app we're doing our group project on (Pinterest). Since I've been researching its monetization (this post has been very helpful!) I see that the success of Pinterest's adds can be dependent on how much permission the user gives with tracking. If Pinterest knows more about the user, the ads are specifically targeted to them and seamlessly fit into their feed, disguised as Pins they'd be drawn to. If the user forbids tracking, the ads are often less targeted and more obnoxious. I'm curious to see what most people would prefer!
ReplyDeleteHello Rachel,
ReplyDeleteI would add one more phrase to your title question: who cares? I certainly do not care, though I suppose if I had a company and was marketing my products I would care about social media monetization. I agree with you that the goal of social media monetization is to keep the user scrolling: the more we scroll, the more chances of being exposed to an ad.
Thank you for sharing New York Times marketing model. I never thought about the relationship between their digital subscribers and the value of the news and content that they are sharing. Instead of paying for a subscription, I have signed up for New York Times’ daily email which gives brief summaries of news, features, and editorials. At our local public library I am able to access most major online newspapers and databases with my borrowing card.
Thank you for the insightful post - your final paragraph really gets to the core of the issue with social media monetization!
Hi Rachel, I very much appreciate your linking the significance and continued relevance of paywalls for information access as a qualifier for perhaps a lack of data driven tracking and equally selling of this data to 3rd party companies. To me, it reminds me of Richard Sierra's 1973 film, Television Delivers People, which highlights the philosophy, " if something is free, then you are the product." I definitely have applied this warning to practice when downloading apps connected to my health and thus integrating health data and privacy implications of such intricate knowledge, but understanding it as it relates to social media as a whole and the active, ongoing (and quite honestly, tiring) process of agency by way of actively advocating and monitoring terms and conditions and the landscape of language that involves, is just absolutely exhausting, and I'm still figuring out what it means to do that work. Great share!
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