Will subscription-based social media change our habits?

Meet the social media love child of Instagram, TikTok and OnlyFans... Sunroom. Lizzie Mulherin explores the newest social media platform on the block, and how it's trying to change the way we scroll for the better.

Which platform gets the most of your time?

My iPhone tells me I’m on Instagram for nine hours per week, half of which I’d spend mindlessly scrolling. I deleted the Facebook app years ago and don’t miss it (though I do miss the odd birthday and event). While there’s decent content on TikTok, it mostly feels like an overwhelming abyss.

My relationship status with social media would be: It’s complicated. I know filtered perfection wreaks havoc on body image and advertiser-led algorithms corrode attention spans. But I can’t disregard the positives; facilitating connection, amplifying marginalised voices, expanding creative revenue streams and audiences (Instagram is probably what brought you here).

Also, some memes are pretty funny.

For better or worse, it’s so embedded in the way we communicate, work, learn and live that it’s here to stay. Harnessing the good without succumbing to the bad is tough, especially when the odds are stacked against us with advertiser-funded apps designed for addiction.

But there’s a new player in the social media game shooting for a different score: subscribers. Marketed as ‘the creator app where women and non-binary people make money’, Sunroom is a first-of-its-kind fusion of Instagram, TikTok and OnlyFans - with some fundamental differences.

The platform exclusively features content from established female and non-binary creators, spanning podcasters, athletes, activists, entrepreneurs, entertainers and educators. Each creator has their own ‘Sunroom’; where they can share content and interact directly with their ‘members’.

Who's on Sunroom?

Anyone can join the platform as a member, but there’s a limit to what you can see without payment. Creators determine their monthly subscription price (between $5 and $50 AUD) and what content sits behind their paywall. Members who don’t want to commit to a creator can purchase ‘beams’ in packages (from $4.49 to $319.99 AUD) and use them to message creators or ‘cheer’ individual pieces of content.

Co-founded by Australians Lucy Mort, former design director at Hinge, and Michelle Battersby, former marketing director at Bumble, Sunroom seeks to ‘tighten the bond’ between ‘underserved creatives' and their audiences.

Mort explained her reason for creating Sunroom by saying, “I fell in love with products that connect people and create chemistry in a digital sense when I worked at Hinge, and wanted to solve another problem in that space.

“I’m a very sex positive person and was intrigued by OnlyFans. I was excited to learn women were making significant money in this area, but came to realise the stigma women face in productising themselves and their content. This bothered me on a very deep level.”

Like OnlyFans, Sunroom gives members the opportunity to pay for more personal content from their favourite creators. The platform doesn’t allow porn, but is definitively sex positive - creators include sexologist Chantelle Otten and writer/sex worker Tilly Lawless - and ‘more progressively moderated than Instagram’.

A filter-free space

Battersby added that “We learned creators on TikTok and Instagram were also having issues with censorship, trolling and the judgement they face. We wanted to create an alternative that allows more freedom and positive community-building.”

Sunroom is creator-focused but is subscription funded (they take a 20% service fee from creator’s earnings), so the app is incentivised to serve the users - not the advertisers. Which means the content must add value.

“We launched with 100 creators so we could scale consciously. We carefully vet each person to ensure they’re creating quality content that people are already engaging with,” Battersby said of the curation of creators.

Author and podcaster Alexis Fernandez shared how her Sunroom content differs to what she posts on other social mediums, saying “My Sunroom content is what I won’t share for free on my Instagram; mindset hacks, meditation and training. The community feels a lot more positive, because people are paying to be there.”

Like TikTok, Sunroom’s feed displays video content that fills the entire screen (rather than an Instagram-style captioned image). Unlike TikTok, it doesn’t feature underage girls dancing in school uniforms - and there are no filters in sight.

The cost-benefit analysis

I scroll through content spanning astrology, birth coaching, sex education and politics.

One of my ‘suggested accounts’ is advocate Clementine Ford. Her video says: “I’m so grateful to be here, and establish community that is free from [what] we’re used to with these dude-run tech companies… Hopefully you won’t feel alienated from me, I’m just a 40-year-old single mum.”

Mort said of this more candid approach, “We intentionally encourage our creators to just talk on camera and put something up that is raw and authentic. It lowers the bar.”

“We also want to remove the incessant pressure. Our algorithm doesn’t demand creators post at a certain frequency for us to show content. We’re building a way to pause subscriptions so creators can take time off, and looking at a ‘stop cue’ when members have caught up.”

I seem to lose less time on Sunroom. Having to stop and consider what I’ll pay to watch makes mindless scrolling impossible. But of course, there are trade-offs.

If you want to subscribe or engage with many creators, it could get costly. The app is new, so content takes longer to load. There’s no ‘discovery’ page - so you have to scroll through each creator to see what they’re about.

Sunroom is also not designed to connect members with each other - so stick to Instagram for meme-sharing.

“We’re not about amassing lots of followers,” Mort said. “We’re not incentivised to maximise eyeballs on screens and come up with tricks to keep people engaged because we aren’t showing ads. It’s about bringing an audience that’s committed into a really intimate space.”

More and more, subscription-based platforms are asking us to pay for content - but perhaps spending money more consciously could save us irreplaceable time.

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