The Billion-Dollar ‘Planting Grass’ Economy: Content, Commerce, and Social Shopping

It's hard to pinpoint when it started, but major Chinese tech companies have become obsessed with "planting grass" (Zhongcao).

"Planting grass", or Zhongcao, refers to recommending quality products to others to entice purchases or generating a desire to experience or possess something based on external information.

In recent years, internet giants such as Tencent, Alibaba, ByteDance, and Meituan have been entering the "planting grass" race, focusing on the grass-planting economy.

Nearly 20 grass-planting products have been launched by these companies in the past two years, and some have even rolled out similar products overseas. However, most of these products have fizzled out, turning "planting grass" into a lingering concern for these tech giants.

At its core, the "grass-planting economy" is an attention economy, a further extension of the "internet celebrity economy". According to public reports, the grass-planting economy has already reached a scale of hundreds of billi...