The media industry was among the first affected by digitization, because digital technologies have changed content production, distribution, and consumption profoundly. Most media companies have suffered revenue losses, being unable to adapt their monetization strategies to the rapidly changing media consumption patterns of their recipients. Additionally, advertising revenues have proven to be a less reliable revenue source in online than in offline media markets. Consequently, a major obstacle to the content providers’ successful digital transformation is the establishment of sustainable revenue streams (Chyi 2012). The market for music and video content reveals a trend toward direct monetization, with subscription-based streaming services such as Spotify or Netflix showing increasing revenues. However, other media markets, including the market for news content, still struggle to monetize their content online (PricewaterhouseCoopers 2019). After extensive experimentation with various monetization approaches and several failed attempts, more and more news content providers adopt digital paywalls to counter the impending market trends. While the term digital paywall is commonly used in the context of news content, the functionality of this instrument to govern consumers’ access to online content is also important for other media products such as music, videos, or games. However, a standard digital paywall does not exist. Owing to the wide range of and new developments in configuration options, the limited experience with digital paywalls in practice, and a lack of research on this topic, it is still unclear which factors determine the optimal design of a digital paywall. The process of establishing a viable business model for online content is complex and remains a challenge for media companies. Content providers seek to maximize direct revenue by selling content and indirect revenue through advertising (i.e., a two-sided market), while simultaneously considering cannibalization and spillover effects on their traditional formats. Whereas news content providers usually rely on both revenue sources for their printed editions, most of them initially offered their online editions free of charge and only monetized them indirectly through advertising. Although online advertising revenue has been growing steadily, this growth has not been sufficient to compensate for the revenue losses from offline sources such as print subscriptions or advertising. The small margins in online advertising are mainly due to the intensified competition in the digital channel, driven by Accepted after two revisions by Ulrich Frank.

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在线内容货币化：数字付费墙设计和配置

媒体行业是最早受到数字化影响的行业之一，因为数字技术深刻地改变了内容的生产、分发和消费。大多数媒体公司都遭受了收入损失，无法根据接受者迅速变化的媒体消费模式调整其货币化策略。此外，与线下媒体市场相比，在线广告收入已被证明是不太可靠的收入来源。因此，内容提供商成功实现数字化转型的主要障碍是建立可持续的收入流（Chyi 2012）。音乐和视频内容市场呈现出直接货币化的趋势，Spotify 或 Netflix 等基于订阅的流媒体服务收入不断增加。然而，其他媒体市场，包括新闻内容市场，仍然难以通过在线内容获利（PricewaterhouseCoopers 2019）。在对各种货币化方法进行了广泛的试验和多次失败的尝试之后，越来越多的新闻内容提供商采用数字付费墙来应对即将到来的市场趋势。虽然术语数字付费墙通常用于新闻内容，但该工具管理消费者访问在线内容的功能对于音乐、视频或游戏等其他媒体产品也很重要。但是，不存在标准的数字付费专区。由于配置选项的广泛和新的发展，数字付费墙在实践中的经验有限，以及缺乏对这个主题的研究，目前尚不清楚哪些因素决定了数字付费墙的最佳设计。为在线内容建立可行的商业模式的过程很复杂，对媒体公司来说仍然是一个挑战。内容提供商寻求通过销售内容来最大化直接收入，并通过广告（即双边市场）获得间接收入，同时考虑对其传统格式的蚕食和溢出效应。尽管新闻内容提供商的印刷版通常依赖这两种收入来源，但他们中的大多数最初免费提供在线版本，并且仅通过广告间接将其货币化。虽然网络广告收入一直在稳步增长，这一增长不足以弥补线下资源（如印刷订阅或广告）的收入损失。在线广告的微薄利润主要是由于 Ulrich Frank 两次修订后的 Accepted 推动了数字渠道的竞争加剧。