Zhihu

Zhihu operates as China's knowledge-sharing commons—81.4 million monthly users contributing and consuming long-form Q&A content across technology, business, science, and culture. After 14 years and three consecutive profitable quarters in 2025, the platform finally demonstrates that collective intelligence can generate sustainable revenue. Q2 2025 brought $100.1 million in revenue and $12.8 million in adjusted net profit, driven by 49% paid membership ($1.76 billion annually), 35% advertising ($1.25 billion), and 13% vocational training. The business model works because high-quality knowledge acts as public good: contributors answer for reputation rewards, readers access expertise for free or low cost, Zhihu monetizes attention at scale.

The platform's competitive strategy reveals competitive exclusion protecting niche quality. Zhihu rejected aggressive AI-generated content ("refuse to let AI masquerade as human") and pruned low-quality ads that harm community trust, sacrificing short-term revenue for long-term ecosystem health. This is mutualism maintenance: the platform only thrives if users continue contributing high-quality answers, which only happens if the environment remains reputable. When Zhihu cut inefficient ad formats in 2023-2024, marketing revenue dropped—but Q2 2025 showed 13% quarter-over-quarter recovery as higher-quality advertisers returned. The lesson: in knowledge ecosystems, quality acts as selection pressure. Low-quality content drives away contributors, which depletes the resource base, which collapses the platform.

Zhihu's fragility appears in scale limitations and niche constraints. That $100 million quarterly revenue pales against Bilibili's $964 million or Weibo's $442 million—knowledge Q&A has lower monetization density than video or social media. The platform reached 81.4 million monthly users but growth has plateaued as WeChat, Douyin, and Xiaohongshu (RedNote) absorb casual information-seeking behavior. Zhihu survives by defending a specialist niche: users seeking detailed, expert-level answers to complex questions. The 13.2 million paid subscribers (16% of MAUs) represent committed community members willing to pay for ad-free access and exclusive content. This concentration creates resilience—Zhihu doesn't need viral growth if it maintains a dedicated knowledge-sharing community. The test: whether profitability at 80 million users creates a sustainable organism, or merely delays inevitable consolidation into larger platforms.