The Questionable Foundations and Implications of Money-Making Apps in China

Since 2016, some apps have started assigning tasks to mobile internet users in mainland China while compensating them with some money for their loss of attention and time. Qutoutiao and Pinduoduo championed the trend in conquering the low-end market, i.e, new mobile internet users living in smaller cities and rural areas. The business model broke into the mainstream in 2018 with subsequent widespread adoption across the industry, but controversial legal and ethical issues around the practice of openly exchanging users’ screen time for money were rarely addressed until 2020. This paper defines money-making apps and introduces several common models while offering a timeline of how money-making apps grew from a niche category in the industry to the engine of user growth today. Money-making apps remain questionable for their business sustainability, and the model continues to pose significant legal and ethical concerns. The unique context of the convergence of civil society and government bodies in China and the recent stagnation of mobile internet growth are major contributors to the headwinds facing money-making apps in today’s Chinese internet industry.