By 2014, the number of paid users reached 9.45 million, with a growth rate exceeding tenfold.

However, compared to the advertising revenue sector in the video industry, it still amounted to just a drop in the bucket.

In 2015, the paid market reached a turning point, entering an explosive growth period like a geyser.

The launch of "The Lost Tomb" was the most iconic event of that year.

It adopted the new release model of "members watch the whole series at once," initiating a new attempt in the drama subscription field of domestic video websites and revealing the vast potential contained within the paid market.

Once the news of watching the whole series at once was released, the platform immediately gained over a 100% increase in new weekly members.

On the launch day, within 5 minutes, the instantaneous play requests reached 1.6 billion times, the influx of paid users crashed iQIYI's servers.

At this moment, video websites no longer relied solely on imported movies to develop the paid market; paid content began to diversify.

On one hand, platforms still did not give up the competition for copyright works, spending heavily on top dramas and variety shows, creating possibilities for member conversion.

On the other, platforms successively launched member-produced series to attract paid users, leading the video pay market into its first wave of explosive growth.

In this race to attract new users with platform-produced series, outstanding web dramas like "The Lost Tomb," "Soul Ferry," "Go Princess Go," "Medical Examiner Dr. Qin," and later, "A Love So Beautiful," "Candle in the Tomb: The Weasel Grave," "Day and Night," all left a significant mark.

In the field of variety shows, major platforms also introduced the "member early access" mode.

Mango TV launched "Who's the Murderer 2," and Youku crafted "Mars Intelligence Agency 2," experimenting with the form of member early access for paid viewing.

iQIYI's exclusive single crosstalk show, "The King's Arrival," tried out a fully paid viewing mode for online variety shows.

Additionally, this period's paid content began to expand into new blue oceans, precisely targeting user needs, with children's programs, VR concert live streams, and sports events all becoming strong supplements to video pay content.

In 2016, Wang Fei's "Once Upon a Time" concert adopted the VR paid live broadcast mode, with total viewing numbers exceeding 20 million and an accumulated total playback volume reaching 350 million.

Simultaneously, in this race for new users, "new phenomena" like network movies also began to emerge. The concept of network movies was formally proposed in 2014, with "The Journey of the Taoist Priest" leading the way as the most representative work, creating a miracle of 850,000 cost leveraging 20 million box office, inspiring the enthusiasm of content producers.

By 2015, the number of network movies released exceeded the total number of theater films for the year. Although the quality varied, in terms of quantity, they had already become a strong supplement to the paid film library.

In contrast, the ledger series, only introduced in 2016, saw relatively slow development during this period.

These are highlights in the history of paid market development worth recording.

In 2016, paid network dramas reached 239, with a year-on-year growth of 560%, network movies exceeded 2500, growing by 260%, and paid users rose to 75 million.

At this point, flagship self-produced content already showed a trend where member-paid revenue rivaled traditional advertising revenue, such as iQIYI's "The Mystic Nine" and Sohu Video's exclusive "Medical Examiner Dr. Qin," with paid income accounting for more than 50%, and the pay mechanism of web dramas also progressively became mature.

Besides the diversification of paid content, during this period, video platforms also explored more models.

"The Legend of Zu Mountain" pioneered the release mode of "online first, TV later," with members able to watch an entire season at once, creating a pattern where video platforms pushed content to TV stations.

The first web drama to exceed 10 billion views, "The Mystic Nine," was similarly in a network-TV joint broadcast mode, achieving full IP development with web dramas, games, and spin-offs.

By acquiring high-quality exclusive broadcast rights, nourishing self-produced series, introducing the ledger model, establishing content barriers, and successfully implementing the membership system, the development of the video industry was revolutionized, allowing video platforms and production companies to see the dawn of profitability.

By 2017, paid users had surpassed the 100 million mark. During this period, just as platforms fiercely competed for copyright blockbusters and aggressively developed self-produced series, the ledger market had grown into a force that could not be ignored.

From the 634,000 of "Adult Note 2" to "Snake's" 50.78 million, examining the annual highest box office trends of network movies from 2014 to 2018, it is difficult not to marvel at the rapid expansion of this market scale.

From wild growth to meticulous cultivation, the policies introduced in 2017 prompted network movies to break away from the previous "curiosity wins" status, entering a more industrialized and large-scale new competition stage, with the market landscape gradually stabilizing.

Simultaneously, the ledger series market also welcomed a good time for development. "Cooking without Fire" launched in 2017 truly achieved a dual feedback of both reputation and market for ledger series, with "Waiting for the Smoke to Warm and the Rain to Collect" and "Peerless Concubine" standing out as exemplary works in the ledger series market in recent years.

Among these, in 2019, "Peerless Concubine" updated the ledger series ledger amount to 40 million. An increasing number of mid-to-small budget web dramas are progressively adopting the ledger model, with the number of ledger series continuously climbing, and the ledger amounts filled with imagination.

At the end of 2018, both IQIYI and Tencent Video announced their membership numbers consecutively, breaking through the 80 million mark in a tight race.

However, the battle in the paid market is far from over. With the advent of the 5G era and the widespread application of VR, AR technologies and applications, more innovative content forms and business models are being developed, with new categories like vertical screen dramas, interactive dramas becoming new growth points for paid growth.

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