Good morning, and thank you for joining us. Today, we will be examining a phenomenon that has become increasingly prevalent on digital platforms, with a specific focus on its manifestation on the Chinese Q&A site, Zhihu. The topic is the proliferation of user engagement models centered on the premise of "making money by watching advertisements." This practice, often marketed as a simple and accessible form of side income, warrants a closer, objective look at its mechanisms, its implications for users and the platform, and the broader ecosystem it inhabits. At its core, the model is straightforward. Platforms, including certain sections and features within Zhihu, incentivize user engagement by offering small monetary rewards or platform-specific points for performing specific tasks. The most common of these tasks is watching video advertisements in their entirety. Other tasks may include reading sponsored articles, completing surveys, or inviting new users to join. The accumulated rewards can then be cashed out, often after reaching a certain threshold, or used to purchase virtual goods or services within the platform's ecosystem. On the surface, this appears to be a win-win scenario. Users gain a perceived financial benefit for time they might otherwise spend passively scrolling, while advertisers gain verified, attentive eyeballs for their marketing messages. The platform itself benefits from a massive increase in user engagement metrics, daily active users, and time spent on the app—all critical data points for attracting further advertising revenue and impressing investors. However, a deeper analysis reveals a more complex and potentially problematic picture. **The User Perspective: The Illusion of Income and the Cost of Attention** The primary appeal for the user is, unequivocally, the prospect of earning money. However, the critical question that must be asked is: What is the actual value of this income? The compensation offered for watching a single advertisement is typically minuscule. To reach a cash-out threshold, which might be ten or twenty yuan, a user would need to consume hundreds, if not thousands, of advertisements. When calculated on an hourly basis, the effective "wage" often falls far below any reasonable minimum standard, sometimes amounting to mere pennies per hour. This transforms the activity from a lucrative side hustle into a high-effort, low-return task. The psychological draw of "free money" can obscure this harsh economic reality, leading users to invest significant time for a disproportionately small reward. Beyond the questionable economics lies a more significant cost: the expenditure of a user's most finite resource—attention. The human capacity for focused attention is limited. Time spent consciously watching promotional content for micro-payments is time not spent on productive work, skill development, quality entertainment, or social interaction. This model effectively monetizes user distraction, encouraging a form of digital piecework that fragments concentration and can contribute to a habit of shallow, transactional engagement with digital content. Furthermore, this system creates a powerful incentive for the platform to curate a specific type of advertising content. To keep users engaged in the watch-to-earn cycle, the advertisements need to be palatable and easily consumable in high volume. This often leads to a prevalence of low-quality, high-frequency ads for mobile games, e-commerce apps, or dubious financial products. The user's experience becomes saturated with this content, which can degrade the overall quality and intellectual tone of a platform like Zhihu, which was originally founded on the principles of knowledge sharing and high-quality discussion. **The Platform Perspective: Erosion of Core Value and Data Integrity** For a knowledge-centric platform like Zhihu, the long-term strategic risks of embracing this model are substantial. Zhihu built its brand and loyal user base by being a destination for in-depth answers, professional insights, and thoughtful debate. The introduction of a financial incentive for passive ad consumption represents a fundamental shift in the user-platform relationship. The platform's core value proposition risks being diluted. When a significant portion of user activity is driven by micro-transactions rather than a genuine interest in content, the quality of engagement can suffer. Users may be motivated to "game" the system—clicking on ads without genuine interest or creating low-effort content to fulfill tasks—which can clutter the platform and devalue authentic contributions. The community's culture can shift from one of shared curiosity to one of transactional exchange. Moreover, the data generated by this model can be misleading. Advertisers pay for "engagement," but in this context, engagement is financially coerced, not organically generated. A user watching an ad to earn $0.01 is not necessarily a potential customer; they are a paid participant. This can inflate advertising metrics, such as view-through rates, while potentially delivering a lower actual conversion rate for advertisers. Over time, if advertisers perceive that the engagement is artificial, it could undermine the platform's credibility and the premium it can charge for its ad inventory. **The Broader Ecosystem: Privacy and Regulatory Considerations** The "watch ads to earn" model is also inextricably linked to data collection. To serve targeted ads and verify task completion, platforms must monitor user behavior with immense granularity. This involves tracking which ads are watched, for how long, what content is interacted with immediately afterward, and a host of other behavioral data. While most platforms operate within the bounds of their privacy policies, the very business model is predicated on the intensive harvesting and analysis of user data, raising perpetual questions about data security and usage. From a regulatory standpoint, such models operate in a grey area. While not inherently illegal, they can attract scrutiny from consumer protection agencies regarding the transparency of reward schemes. Questions about the actual value of rewards, the difficulty of reaching cash-out thresholds, and the potential for these systems to resemble gambling mechanics (through variable rewards or "lucky draws") are all subjects of ongoing debate in various jurisdictions. **Conclusion: A Question of Value Alignment** In conclusion, the issue is not that earning money by watching advertisements is inherently fraudulent. The transactions are, in a technical sense, voluntary. The problem is one of misaligned incentives, obscured costs, and long-term value erosion. For the user, the model offers an illusion of income while extracting a high cost in attention and opportunity. It promotes a form of engagement that is passive and transactional, rather than active and intellectual. For a platform like Zhihu, the danger lies in compromising its foundational identity as a space for knowledge in pursuit of short-term engagement metrics. It risks trading a community of thinkers for an audience of task-completers. The central question we are left with is not "What is wrong with making money by watching ads?" but rather, "What are the true costs, and who ultimately benefits?" A thorough and objective examination suggests that the scales may be tipped heavily in favor of the platform and the advertiser, while the user, and the platform's long-term health, may be paying the hidden price. The sustainability of such a model, particularly for a platform built on the value of knowledge, remains a critical and open question for the industry. Thank you. We will now open the floor for questions.
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