Beyond Subscription for the Service Providers

I propose additional revenue models for high-tier service providers. While current leaders like Google, LinkedIn, Meta, and Netflix utilize cutting-edge technology, their revenue models remain primitive, relying almost exclusively on advertising or flat-rate monthly subscriptions. These models are sufficient for average consumers, but they fail to capture the value sought by power users willing to pay for specific, high-value additions. My proposition is to charge based on incremental value.

Netflix: Tiered Content and Feature Monetization

Flat-fee subscriptions disadvantage premium content producers by averaging the value of high-budget and low-budget media.

Premium Access: Specific high-value content should allow for an additional per-view charge, enabling the inclusion of more specialized or high-budget productions.

Feature-Based Billing: Services such as dubbing or specialized subtitles could be charged as add-ons. This creates a self-sustaining revenue stream for localization, increasing total content availability without inflating the base subscription cost.

LinkedIn: Usage-Based Utility

Current subscription models often force users into long-term packages for short-term needs, or conversely, penalize high-intensity interaction by flagging accounts.

On-Demand Actions: Advanced searches and high-value interactions should be available via per-action or short-term bursts rather than monthly commitments.

Retention Logic: Rigid account blocking for high-intensity use disincentivizes platform interaction. A usage-based model allows for "heavy use" periods without compromising account status, preventing the increase of "ghost accounts."

Google Gemini: Compute-Based Pricing

Standard monthly fees for AI do not align with the high infrastructure and energy costs of data centers. For productivity-focused users, pricing should scale with computational load.

Dynamic Assessment: Upon receiving a query, the system should provide three processing tiers:

Fast Thinking: 0.2 cents

Moderate Thinking: 1.2 cents

Heavy Thinking: 2.0 cents

Efficiency: This allows users to pay only for the required "compute" for a specific task, removing the barrier of a high flat-rate monthly fee for intermittent users.

Implementation: Pre-Paid Credit System

I propose a pre-paid "wallet" system to facilitate these micro-transactions.

Privacy and Security: Pre-payment removes the necessity for service providers to store sensitive credit card data.

Financial Logic: Service providers benefit from the time value of money by receiving payments upfront.

Micro-transactions: Small-scale billing (in cents) is technically feasible through a pre-paid balance where credit card processing fees would otherwise make it impossible.

Transferability: This system allows for easy peer-to-peer balance transfers, such as a parent allocating a specific budget to a child’s account for controlled service consumption.