Hongguo Tells Its Binge-Watchers to Slow Down, Drops Coins

Hongguo, the short-drama app that has become one of China’s most-watched pastimes, is doing something unusual for a platform built on endless scrolling: it is asking users to watch less. On October 21, the app announced it would fully retire its coin-reward feature before the end of the year, a system that paid viewers small credits for time spent inside the app.

The timing is striking. Just a day earlier, financial outlet Caixin, citing data from research firm QuestMobile, reported that in the third quarter of 2026 the average Hongguo user spent roughly 151 minutes a day in the app, the highest among major Chinese apps with more than 100 million monthly active users. That is about two and a half hours daily of micro-dramas, the vertically shot, fast-paced series that have exploded in China over the past few years.

Coin rewards have been a common growth tool for Chinese content apps. They lower the cost of trying a new platform and keep price-sensitive viewers coming back. But they also invite criticism that the apps are engineering compulsion rather than satisfaction, and regulators have grown attentive to how digital products compete for attention, especially among younger users.

For Hongguo, dropping the coins looks like a bet that its content can hold viewers on its own. The app has invested heavily in original short dramas and in recommendation technology, and it has recently experimented with a chatbot that helps users find their next series. If the habit is already strong, paying people to stay may be unnecessary — and potentially harmful to the brand.

The move also fits a broader shift in China’s short-drama industry. After years of breakneck growth, platforms are consolidating, production costs are under pressure, and the market is crowded with titles chasing a small number of hits. Companies are looking for steadier, more defensible ways to keep audiences engaged, from subscriptions to interactive features, rather than simply buying minutes with rewards.

Investors and rivals will be watching whether Hongguo’s usage holds up without the coin incentive. A decline would suggest the rewards were doing more work than the dramas; a stable audience would strengthen the case that short-form serials have become a genuine daily habit for Chinese viewers, much like scrolling social feeds or watching livestreams.

Either way, the experiment is a test of a question facing every attention-based business: when an app is already the leader in time spent, is it smarter to push for more, or to protect the relationship with the people watching?