Last month on January 19, in answer to the harsh realities of remaining relevant in an overcrowded social media-verse, Instagram announced a new fan subscription option for creators in hopes to stop the bleeding of members to both TikTok and YouTube. The trial was launched with limited live testing, using prominent creators as a thermometer to gauge interest.
The subscription price is set by the performer and can range from 0.99 – $99.99. Instagram owner Meta is forgoing fees until at least 2023 making it even more attractive to users who will be able to give their members exclusive benefits which include Subscribers-Only Lives, Subscribers-Only Stories and special Subscriber badges – a purple crown icon which lets the creator know who their members are when they comment and/or send messages.
Instagram said: “With Instagram Subscriptions, creators can develop deeper connections with their most engaged followers and grow their recurring monthly income by giving subscribers access to exclusive content and benefits, all within the same platform where they interact with them already.”
A new way to monetize, however…
By creators, Insta of course most likely means mainstream creators. We’re betting, just like most of the other apps out there other than Twitter, the adult industry will once again be excluded from a new feature which would be extremely beneficial to their bottomline. This is ironic, considering Instagram’s subscription option seems to be a natural fit for the adult industry.
If someone wants to pay for sensitive content, what’s the problem? Currently, Instagram is forced to police profiles for having free adult-related content showing up in people’s feeds who don’t want it. The paid fan subscription option solves that issue. Further, Instagram is already inundated with adult content and has difficulty monitoring it. Why not just accept people want to see it and sell it and make it available with subscription?
If Instagram is serious about growing and competing in the fan site/subscription model marketplace, opening their gates to the adult industry could be a game changer. It would likely drive not only a flood of new creators to the app but followers. The adult industry wrote the book on subscriber-based paid content and knows how to do it better than anyone.
As of this writing, only ten mainstream creators have been chosen to try out Instagram’s new feature:
— actor @alanchikinchow (398k followers)
— astrologer @alizakelly (84.3K followers)
— spiritual coach and artist @bunnymichael (216K followers)
— XR creator @donalleniii (63.6K followers)
— digital creator @lonnieiiv (574K followers)
— digital creator @elliottnorris (166K followers)
— Olympic silver medalist @jordanchiles (431K followers)
— gymnast/actor @jackjerry (109K followers)
— dancer/actress/model @kelseylynncook (206k followers)
— athlete @sedona._ (235K followers)
Curious list, as there’s not a lot of variety — three actors, two athletes, two digital creators, one astrologer and one VR creator, all with well under a million followers each. Have they not noticed that Lana Rhodes has 16.7 million followers? It makes Instagram’s choices above look absurd. What better way to test out a new subscription option than with someone who can actually reach so many?
Not to mention, numerous adult entertainers have large followings on the site as well such as @jessicadrake (323k followers), @charmanestar (116k followers) and @thejessejane (154k followers). Imagine how many more users these women could attract to Instagram if they had the option to actually monetize new content via subscription?
It’ll be interesting to see if this feature ends up making the cut and if so, how Instagram will decide WHO gets to have subscriber accounts and what rules will be put in place. We’re hopeful they’ll include the adult industry, but we’re not holding our breath.
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Alyssa Collins hails from Minnesota, where snowy days were the perfect excuse to stay warm inside and write. Over the years, she turned that joy into a career and has authored numerous articles for various publications (under pen names). Email Alyssa via alyssa@ynot.com.
Header image by via Pexels here. Screengrab via YNOT Cam.
