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Lending Is The New Advertising

In the late 00’s, as the internet age matured in developed countries, advertising became the sexy way to monetise. The strategy for most consumer internet startups was simple - Make it free, get a huge audience (i.e. distribution), and then leverage it for distributing advertisements.

Late 10’s onwards, in developing economies like India, advertising isn’t worth as much - but lending is. In a cash strapped economy, startups like Khatabook, and BharatPe are building huge distribution networks. All of them will look to monetise the same through microlending.

Back then, everybody could advertise - Today, everybody can lend. We will see consolidations and cornering of market by a few players. It’s anybody’s guess who the lenders with the best distribution channel will be. My guess is PayTM.

I foresee that eventually just like in ads, lenders will enable smaller individuals to create distribution for them. I’m interested in learning - who’s creating the AdSense Network for Lending?

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