It's no news that crypto has sold “freedom” so much in its promotional initiatives that the average user almost always feels entitled to lots of “free things” within the ecosystem.
Evidently, in the world we live in, almost nothing is “free”. The vast misconception of “time or data-based monetized” with “free things” activities stems from the reality that humans cannot quantify the value of time, hence, place little value on it, also, in the digital realm, it's largely difficult to estimate the value of one's data, leading to the majority valuing it less by recklessly feeding it off to various platform algorithms.
For example, we consistently feed Google our data and in exchange, we receive products like Google search, Docs, Gmail and lots more without any direct monetary obligation.
To the average user, we are using these services for “Free” but the reality is that we are paying with our “data'' which is heavily monetized when sold off to advertisers.
Other times, we trade our time to access certain services like watching an ad to use a VPN. We are selling our data and time in the process with instances like this but the general view is that these things are “free”.
That said, freemium services, whilst generally not tied to the examples above, involves offering users what is perceived to be “free” with strategic implementation of better offers requiring premium payments to be made for access.
Freemium services are a business model where a company offers basic services or products free of charge while charging a premium for advanced features, functionality, or virtual goods. This model is commonly used in software, online services, and mobile apps.
ChatGPT.
For those frequent in the world of business topics, especially digital businesses, coming across freemium services would be a common occurrence as the space is populated by them.
Email softwares and hosting services are two of the most common industries with vast freemium offerings.
Freemium in crypto - Why It Is Important
Crypto is a finance innovation aimed at solving the flaws of fiat using distributed ledger technology. For crypto to scale to the masses, it needs to lack significant limitations for new users.
Unfortunately, when we look at most crypto projects today, there's always a significant limitation and we are not even talking about the poor investment in “education” by these projects leading to underperforming onboarding processes but the “money-based” limitation that gate-keeps the space.
Gas or transaction fees are the limitations in mention. There are a vast number of crypto projects being developed and deployed monthly but oftentimes you meet users complaining of “fees”.
Perfecting a freemium business offering in crypto means creating a system that allows new users to enjoy certain benefits for “free” and only have to inject external value into the system when they begin to intensively leverage the technology.
Solving the flaws of gas fees is the first step towards achieving an accessible value ecosystem.
Fortunately, some crypto projects have already figured out the “free” part of this but I'd say has yet to perfect its premium offerings.
Hive is a great example of such a project. A new Hive account, which can be created for free using services like INLEO can perform transactions on the blockchain without paying a direct fee. This includes text and monetary transactions with limitations only showing forth when activities by the new account intensifies.
That said, I believe Hive's premium side which requires increased stake isn't currently of huge attraction as not a lot of people believe in its compounding effects. So while it has the foundation which is limited free transfers, it hasn't perfected it's premium side even though it's should have it easy due to the fact that “gas fees” on said network do not exactly get charged to the balance of tokens held but to a regenerative virtual currency tied to stake held.
All crypto projects will need to create a system of free services with high value combined with premium services with even higher value to truly scale to the masses because people want free things and need to be highly convinced to pay for added value.