I wrote an article in Dec’18 for the online tech + business site factordaily.com called ‘Vernacular Apps, English Premium, and Monetizing the Next 200m Users”. The link is below.
In the article, which I am not posting in full here, I argued for why the slew of vernacular apps that have been launching of late, catering to the emerging 100-200m users, will have to look beyond advertising as a revenue model. People like us in India1 have enough purchasing power to be sold to advertisers. Not those in India2. New revenue models combining some programmatic ads with in-app payments / gifts, commerce, branded content etc., will have to emerge if these vernacular apps have to be monetized.