This is *Lowpass*, authored by Janko Roettgers — a newsletter devoted to exploring the continually shifting confluence of technology and entertainment. Published weekly and syndicated exclusively for *The Verge* subscribers, it delves into the dynamic ways innovation and media storytelling intersect, constantly reimagining how cultural trends and digital business converge.
Now, imagine a scenario where one could generate hundreds of millions of dollars by producing content cheaply—entirely bypassing dominant, powerful distribution giants such as Netflix and YouTube. That enticing possibility lies at the heart of Hollywood’s newest fascination: microdramas. This emerging narrative form, characterized by ultra-short serialized storytelling, first took root in China, where technological ecosystems and audience behaviors drove its inception. It subsequently gathered tremendous momentum in India before arriving in the United States, where it now fuels both curiosity and competition across the entertainment sector.
Over recent months, an avalanche of articles has appeared in Hollywood trade journals and major business outlets highlighting the explosive growth of applications such as ReelShort, DramaBox, and ShortMax. Analysts suggest that these platforms might collectively produce as much as $1.3 billion in revenue within the United States alone this year, complemented by an estimated global income approaching $8 billion—a staggering figure that underscores both the financial potential and global appeal of the trend.
Such estimates have inevitably triggered a rush of interest among traditional entertainment companies seeking to claim their share of this rapidly expanding market. Cineverse, in collaboration with Banyan Ventures, has announced plans for a new platform called *MicroCo*; E! Entertainment Television founder Alan Mruvka is preparing to release *Verza TV*, his own microdrama-focused app; and Fox has already made a strategic investment in Holywater, the creative studio responsible for producing the microdrama application *My Drama*.
Nevertheless, much of the media coverage has concentrated not on the consumer experience but rather on the production side of the industry—often describing the shoots as low-budget, typically non-unionized, and at times bordering on exploitative. Yet a critical aspect of this phenomenon remains underexplored: the audience experience. Amid the glowing reports of exponential growth and optimistic revenue forecasts, surprisingly little attention has been devoted to what it’s actually like for ordinary users to engage with one of these microdrama apps. To address that gap, I took a hands-on approach—I downloaded ReelShort, today’s most popular microdrama platform in the United States, to see firsthand how the experience holds up.
### More *Candy Crush* Than *Quibi*
To begin, it’s necessary to draw a clear distinction between microdramas and *Quibi*, the much-publicized but short-lived streaming experiment led by Jeffrey Katzenberg. *Quibi* attempted to build a premium short-form video service by harnessing A-list Hollywood talent and lavish budgets, while simultaneously disregarding the grassroots ecosystems of social video that thrive on virality and user-generated trends. Microdramas, by contrast, stand as a total inversion of that model. They are produced at minimal cost, designed for rapid sharing across mobile platforms, and structured as serialized sequences—comprising sometimes dozens of one-to-two-minute episodes—built around tried-and-true romantic tropes.
Nearly every series follows a familiar formula: an impossibly wealthy yet emotionally complex billionaire risks both fortune and reputation to rescue a woman trapped in an abusive relationship. Predictably, this archetypal billionaire often harbors an interest in BDSM for the sake of heightened drama, and the narratives rarely stop there. Other recurring elements—hidden heirs, stolen fortunes, underworld entanglements, and brooding mafioso lovers—permeate the catalog. While it’s easy to dismiss these stories as melodramatic fluff, viewers familiar with shows like *Bridgerton* or *White Lotus* may find themselves less inclined to judge. Guilty pleasures, after all, form part of what makes popular entertainment so addictive. ReelShort has mastered this formula: within just a handful of bite-sized episodes, viewers are methodically drawn into a cycle of compulsion that rivals the appeal of mobile gaming.
However, after approximately five to eight episodes, the inevitable paywall emerges. At that point, the app informs the viewer that continued access comes at a steep price—$19.99 per week. Translated monthly, that amounts to roughly ten times the cost of Netflix’s lowest subscription tier. Although an annual plan is offered at $200 per year, viewers can also purchase “coin” bundles to unlock episodes individually. To unlock a complete season frequently costs between $30 and $50, which might be reasonable—except that the total viewing time of such a season roughly equals that of an average feature-length film.
When asked about these pricing structures, ReelShort provided no formal comment. The company claims, however, that users technically never have to pay at all: each day, they are granted free access to a small number of episodes, typically two or three. Once this allowance is consumed, a freemium barrier appears, inviting the viewer either to subscribe or to watch advertisements in exchange for continued access. Yet, the conditions are intentionally opaque. On one day, a single ad might unlock two new episodes; on another, it might yield only one. This unpredictable system of delayed gratification—a hallmark of gamified mechanics—keeps users engaged through intermittent reinforcement, the same psychological principle underpinning the appeal of mobile games.
Periodic pop-up messages remind viewers of small opportunities to earn in-app currency, known as coins. For instance, checking in daily grants twenty coins, though unlocking even a single new episode costs sixty. Watching additional videos earns thirty coins per ten minutes, though given that each episode is barely over one minute long, accumulating sufficient rewards through viewing time alone can prove exhausting. Consequently, users find themselves bouncing among different series simply to collect enough coins to continue with their preferred storyline.
Coin accrual can also be boosted by behaviors that increase user engagement beyond viewing. Granting the app permission to send push notifications yields thirty coins; registering an email address grants another thirty; and following ReelShort across social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, or TikTok adds fifteen coins per platform. These tactics, while transparent growth hacks, appear strikingly effective. ReelShort’s official Instagram page now boasts 8.6 million followers, while its YouTube channel surpasses 9.6 million subscribers—numbers rarely achieved by app-first entertainment companies.
Users may also choose to watch up to seventeen ads daily, each providing twenty coins. On the surface, this may appear generous—until one realizes the nature of the ads themselves. During the testing period, I encountered only one mainstream consumer goods advertisement and a few for e-commerce giant Temu. The remainder heavily promoted other apps or hypercasual mobile games, many of which employed intentionally aggravating interactive segments designed to make skipping or closing them unnecessarily difficult.
### ‘Aggressive Freemium’: An Industry Built to Upsell
If this reward-and-lock model sounds eerily familiar, that’s because it mirrors the monetization logic of thousands of free-to-play mobile games. Microdrama applications have borrowed extensively from gaming cultures and mechanics—down to the psychological triggers that keep users oscillating between frustration and gratification. ReelShort’s parent company, Crazy Maple Studio, openly embraces this affiliation. In addition to ReelShort, the studio develops numerous free-to-play games such as *Makeover Date: Makeup ASMR*. The company’s ecosystem actively cross-promotes its properties, urging users to download its games to earn more ReelShort coins. Each completed game level translates into thirty to fifty coins—though naturally, those games also require ad viewing, further embedding users in an endless loop of consumption.
Beyond exploring the app firsthand, I analyzed public reviews across both the Google Play and Apple App Store as well as third-party review sites. Superficially, ReelShort enjoys robust ratings—averaging 4.3 stars on Google Play and 4.5 on the App Store—suggesting overall satisfaction. Yet a deeper reading of user comments reveals pervasive discontent about the same few issues: the app’s high subscription cost and the frustrating opacity of its reward mechanisms. In fact, according to one analysis, nearly 48 percent of all negative feedback focused explicitly on pricing complaints.
This frustration may not be incidental but intrinsic to the model itself. As Sasha Kaletsky, Managing Partner at Creator Ventures, aptly observed, this strategy represents a type of “aggressive freemium.” The idea is that while some limited content remains free, the viewing experience becomes so deliberately inconvenient that paying eventually feels unavoidable. The irritation thus becomes an engineered conversion tool, nudging users toward payment out of impatience or fatigue rather than enthusiasm.
The apparent success of this strategy is measurable. By March 2025, according to SensorTower’s data, ReelShort had amassed nearly half a billion dollars in cumulative global in-app revenue—a figure that underscores how lucrative psychological monetization loops can be. Competitors such as DramaWave are following similar patterns, reportedly acquiring over 80 percent of their audience through high-spending, algorithmically targeted advertising across platforms like TikTok. The business model hinges on aggressive user acquisition campaigns followed by relentless in-app prompts to convert those users into paying subscribers.
While this may produce impressive short-term profits—numbers attractive to venture capital investors and even major studios eager to spot the next cultural gold rush—the longer-term viability of such a model remains uncertain. Constantly pushing viewers toward prohibitively expensive micro-subscriptions may eventually backfire. Indeed, after facing one too many payment prompts, I tested an unsurprising hypothesis: entering the name of the show into a search engine. The top result led directly to a pirated version hosted on a streaming website rife with unauthorized copies of ReelShort’s catalog, a fact often discussed among app users on Reddit forums. Such findings illustrate a fundamental paradox in the ‘aggressive freemium’ economy—when audiences feel squeezed, they will simply seek their billionaire lovers, dramatic inheritances, and romantic mafias elsewhere.
Follow the topics and writers covered in this story to receive more reporting like this directly within your personalized homepage feed or through curated email updates from *Lowpass*.
— *Janko Roettgers*
Sourse: https://www.theverge.com/column/805250/hollywood-is-in-love-with-microdramas-for-all-the-wrong-reasons
