How many subscribers do you have?

How many subscribers do you have?

It’s a question I get asked often when people find out where I work. Everyone wants to know. My friends (Answer: A lot). My landlord (Answer: Enough to pay rent). Uncles on WhatsApp groups (No answer because family whatsapp group is muted for one year).
I can’t help but think what a shift it has been. Nearly a year back, around the time , the response to the same question was met with a mix of confusion, sympathy, polite smiles and some mild cheek-pinching. A
What a shift.
Movies on Netflix. Music on Spotify. Storage on iCloud. Deliveries from Amazon Prime. The more I think about it, everything starts to look like a subscription. My house help runs a version of a subscription service. So does my cook. Even my rented apartment is essentially a subscription.
Subscriptions have been around forever. Subscriptions are coming up everywhere. Our story today is about the ones that have hopped on the bandwagon last, but should have gotten on first.
Increasingly, media companies in India have started putting their content behind a paywall. Finally. It is still early days, but the subscriber numbers being touted are both encouraging and incredulous. 10 thousand subscribers. 100 thousand. E-commerce companies have GMV. Media companies have subscribers. Define it any way you like as long as it makes you look good.
The names are familiar. And unexpected. The Hindu. BloombergQuint. The Economic Times. Moneyc

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