Video hosting platform Vimeo is shutting down its Vimeo On Demand service.
For years, creators have used the service to sell films, courses, performances, and other videos directly to viewers. But new purchases and subscriptions will stop on September 21, and Vimeo On Demand will shut down completely on November 20.
Creators will need to move their videos elsewhere, while customers will lose access to videos they previously purchased or rented through the service. The shutdown comes less than a year after Vimeo was acquired by Bending Spoons.
The creators didn't make this decision, and their customers didn't make this decision. Somebody else made a business decision, and creators have to deal with the consequences.
You can do everything right and your revenue can still break
Content Revenue is a business model that creates value through content. It may be monetized through advertising, sponsorships, subscriptions, direct sales, licensing, or similar models. Its success depends on attracting and sustaining an audience's attention.
You create something people value, find an audience for it, and figure out how to generate revenue from it. Along the way, you may depend on other companies to help people discover it, distribute it, provide access to it, or monetize it.
That's what makes the Vimeo story important. You can make something people want, find customers willing to pay for it, and build a revenue stream around it — and a decision you had no control over can still disrupt that revenue.
Every dependency is another place where your revenue can break. The lesson isn't that creators chose the wrong platform; it's that somebody else's platform was a critical link in their revenue chain.
Diversifying your revenue streams only goes so far
Revenue diversification is supposed to make your business more resilient. Maybe you sell advertising and sponsorships, offer paid subscriptions, sell premium content directly to your audience, and license your content to other companies.
Those are different revenue streams, but they can all belong to the same revenue model. If the value people are paying for comes from the content you create, they're all Content Revenue.
That means you can have several different revenue streams and still have the same fundamental dependency: They all depend on your content creating the value.
Revenue diversification can make your business more resilient, but it only goes so far if all those revenue streams still depend on the same underlying model.
You've diversified your revenue streams, but you haven't diversified your revenue model.
Diversify your revenue models
That's where Community Revenue offers something different.
Content Revenue creates value through content. Community Revenue creates value by bringing people together so they can create value for one another. They are different revenue models because the underlying source of value is different.
With Content Revenue, you create the value and your audience consumes it. With Community Revenue, the people you bring together can exchange knowledge, offer support, make connections, collaborate, and build relationships.
You aren't the only source of value anymore.
Add Community Revenue to your Content Revenue, and now your business has two fundamentally different ways to create value and generate revenue. That's more than adding another revenue stream: You're diversifying the revenue models your business depends on.
You don't have to replace Content Revenue.
You can build beyond it.
What could Community Revenue look like for you? In my free Beyond Content Workshop, we'll look at the audience and assets you already have and find your strongest Community Revenue opportunity.
Find Your Community Revenue Opportunity
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