The less money you make, the faster you gain followers; the faster you gain followers, the less money you make. "Correlation ≠ Causation" is a basic common sense principle, but in specific cases, you need to understand the case itself to distinguish: which are correlated and which are causally related. "Making money" and "gaining followers" are both results of creating content, and they often happen simultaneously. After all, if you have a lot of traffic, even with a low conversion rate, you'll still get conversions; even with a low follower growth rate, you'll still gain followers. However, there are many situations where the two conflict. 1. A small segment of the audience has a very strong willingness to pay because what I'm talking about is something no one else has said, creating a content vacuum in a niche area. By filling this niche, I naturally make money. However, we knew from the beginning that this was a niche market. You can't become popular by focusing on a niche market, and not becoming popular means losing followers (Fun fact: On Douyin, only viral content gains followers; non-viral content leads to follower loss). 2. If we look at the overall content distribution, most of the time users spend browsing content, they are watching content that doesn't generate monetization results, or rather, has no monetization purpose at all, such as humorous or grotesque content. With this massive amount of traffic, it's extremely difficult to capture it with a monetization goal. 3. Content, as a means, caters to a specific purpose. "Gaining followers" and "making money" are clearly two different purposes (they may be closely related, but they are ultimately different). Similar to the mathematical concept of two vectors having a projection relationship, and the projection being positive: The projection of vector A onto the direction of vector B = |A| × cos(θ) Where θ is the angle between the two vectors. So, when you're rushing headlong into "gaining followers," "making money" is likely to be put aside. As for how much money you can make incidentally, it actually depends on the angle between these two vectors in your business model. What exactly is θ? x.com/dontbesilent12/status/20...