By tapping into viewers' appetite for instant entertainment and curiosity-driven storytelling, cross-border platforms are continually steering audiences from free clips toward a series of additional payments.
Behind the phone screen, the business model raises questions over who is profiting and what viewers, particularly young people, may be paying — financially and emotionally.
With a casual swipe on their phone, particularly among younger users, viewers can encounter eye-catching AI-generated characters within seconds. What begins as a fleeting glance can quickly turn into close attention to a one-minute clip — only the opening episode of a story that may run for dozens or even hundreds of installments.
Behind these AI-generated short films, collectively referred to as AI dramas, lies an increasingly sophisticated system designed to keep viewers watching.
Drawn into the vortex with a single accidental tap
After dark, the faint blue glow of vertically held smartphones illuminates the faces of viewers absorbed in what has become a familiar genre: attractive AI-generated men and women starring in melodramatic stories. This is when the machinery designed to keep audiences engaged goes into overdrive.
The same scene is increasingly common in apartment elevators, offices, and parks: people walking or waiting with their eyes glued to their phones as synthetic voices play dialogue from AI-generated dramas.
After work one day, Phuong Mai, 25, of Binh Dong Ward in Ho Chi Minh City, came across an AI-generated short drama on Facebook featuring a familiar "tycoon" storyline.
"The story moved quickly, with one dramatic development after another, and I could not stop watching," Mai said.
The two-minute clip was enough for the recommendation system to identify her interest. Her Facebook newsfeed, TikTok account, and YouTube recommendations were soon filled with dramas of the same type.
Curious and eager to find out what happened next, she began searching for the complete series across different platforms.
Even viewers with a professional interest in the medium can find the recommendation systems difficult to resist.
Truc Nguyen, 35, of Hanh Thong Ward in Ho Chi Minh City, has followed the genre for about two years from a designer's perspective. He said AI dramas had made striking advances in a relatively short time.
"The stories may be similar, but the way they are presented keeps viewers from getting bored. The most dramatic scenes are cut out and used as bait, leaving viewers with an irresistible urge to find out what happens next," Truc Nguyen said.
Both Phuong Mai and Truc Nguyen remain free viewers, but for many others, curiosity soon turns into spending.
From cliffhangers to payments
Nguyen Thi Thanh, 30, from Binh Hung Commune in Ho Chi Minh City, provides an example of how a viewer can move from casual consumption to repeated payments.
She was engrossed in an AI drama on Facebook when, just as the central conflict reached its climax, the episode suddenly ended.
Her immediate reaction was to search social media for the rest of the series. Instead, she found fragmented clips of inconsistent quality. Wanting to see the ending, Thanh followed a link directing her to a dedicated streaming application.
That was when watching the drama began to cost money.
"At first, I paid VND149,000 for a weekly package, then VND299,000 for a monthly subscription. An annual plan offered a 40 percent discount, costing VND999,000 for unlimited access to all series," Thanh said.
"If you want to watch quickly and satisfy the urge to know what happens next, the only way is to pay for coins."
Thanh also warned that the application offered automatic renewal, meaning money could be deducted from a linked account if users forgot to cancel their subscriptions.
The commercial model relies on a combination of highly compressed storytelling and interface design.
Episodes typically open with a shocking situation in the first few seconds, followed by a rapid escalation of conflict. Just as viewers are most eager to learn the outcome, the episode stops, and a payment prompt appears.
The technique turns suspense into a commercial mechanism: curiosity creates engagement, engagement creates viewing time, and viewing time creates opportunities to sell subscriptions, virtual coins, or other forms of paid access.
The business potential of the format is reflected in mobile-app data. RevenueCat, a platform that provides tools for mobile-app developers to manage subscriptions and monetization, reported in August 2026 that 5.5 percent of short-drama app installations converted into paying customers within 35 days, compared with 1.6 percent for other entertainment apps in its analysis.
For viewers, however, the spending can become difficult to track.
On Threads and Facebook, complaints about AI dramas are increasingly easy to find. Office workers, young people, homemakers, and retirees describe being drawn from one application to another as individual series are distributed across different platforms.
Young viewers appear particularly enthusiastic about the format.
"I downloaded three short-drama apps this weekend and spent several hundred thousand Vietnamese dong on each just to watch the shows. Why can't all the good dramas be on one app so I don't have to keep paying?" one young user wrote.
Another admitted: "I know the drama is silly. I know how it will end. But the more I watch, the more addicted I become. The other day, I paid an app just to finish a series and stopped only after it charged me again."
These experiences point to a broader feature of the business model: the viewer does not necessarily make a single large purchase. Instead, small payments can accumulate through subscriptions, virtual coins, premium episodes, and accelerated viewing.
Concerns over emotional and behavioral effects
More concerningly, in pursuit of the formula of delivering a shock in the first three seconds and escalating the drama within 30 seconds, many AI-generated films rely on extreme storylines that push beyond conventional social norms. Common plots feature ungrateful children insulting their parents, stepchildren plotting against stepmothers, and parents discriminating against or driving their children into desperate situations.
Some films go further, depicting slapping, public verbal abuse, poisoning, and even the killing of family members over inheritance disputes or jealousy.
These formulaic, fast-paced scripts pack revenge and violence into a succession of dramatic twists designed to provoke an immediate emotional response. Continuous exposure to such content may condition viewers to expect rapid stimulation and make it harder to sustain attention on content that demands more time and deeper engagement.
For young viewers in particular, repeated exposure to parents and children behaving cruelly toward one another or resorting to violence on vertical screens could potentially desensitize them to negative emotions and make abusive or socially deviant behavior appear more commonplace. Critics warn that such content could gradually distort young people's perceptions of acceptable behavior and foster distrust and emotional detachment in real-life relationships.
Numerous medical studies have found that prolonged exposure of children's developing brains to highly stimulating AI-generated videos can impair deep thinking and undermine their natural creativity.
"When young people become accustomed to the instant emotional gratification provided by AI dramas, remaining patient with real life can become increasingly difficult. This cycle can quietly alter how they respond to everyday situations: they may become more irritable, struggle more easily in relationships and give up quickly when faced with ordinary obstacles," said Dr. Nguyen Quoc Cuong from the Psychology Department at Children's Hospital 2 in Ho Chi Minh City.
A swipe on a phone screen may appear to cost only a few seconds and a small amount of money. But when dozens or hundreds of swipes follow one another, they can become a difficult-to-break habit, with costs extending beyond financial loss.
Behind the algorithms competing to keep viewers engaged lies a broader question: What are those seemingly endless minutes of immersion taking away from viewers' real lives, particularly among young people?
Vietnam's Cinema Department has issued an official document on compliance with regulations governing film distribution in cyberspace. It called on organizations and individuals distributing films online to promptly review their operations, ensure they meet the eligibility requirements under the 2022 Cinema Law, and verify that films distributed through platforms and applications they operate comply fully with cinema and other relevant laws.
Organizations and individuals found to have violated the regulations will face action within the department's authority, while relevant information and case files may be referred to competent authorities for further handling in accordance with the law.
