From the gig economy to the creator economy to the participatory economy
sariazout.substack.com
sariazout.substack.com
Youtube seems to me to be on the edge of a cliff. They are allowing advertisers to call all of the shots. You see videos all the time about how "Trending" tab or whatever other recommendation section on Youtube favours established/mainstream content. The reason is that brand friendliness is make-or-break for Youtube. If a big enough advertiser complains their ads are in front of CreatorZeke's videos then Youtube is going to do whatever necessary to appease the million dollar spender. That has a chilling effect across the platform as creators divine what kind of content gets the sweet ad $$$.
On Twitch, in comparison, some of the biggest creators don't even show ads. They exist very well on subscriptions and donations. This greatly reduces the effect advertisers have over shaping the content that is created. I think fans are starting to realize this and it will likely continue to generate a sense of freedom on Twitch when compared to Youtube.
It reminds me of the "100 True Fans" article on a16z [1]. It is reasonable for a creator to exist and thrive with 100 to 1000 devoted fans.
What does Bezos eat for breakfast?
I would argue that all platforms like those start out that way. The content creators are the passionate ones. Once the big money comes in, the payment model shifts and we end up with what YouTube is doing now.
Allow me to humbly suggest that -- regardless of the truth of this -- perhaps videos recommended on Youtube aren't the least biased evaluation of Youtube's recommendation engine.
Does YouTube replace that ad with another one that doesn't have that preference? If so, it's less of a chilling effect because then it's just advertiser preference.
Twitch has a lot of participation widgets in its UX to get eyeball attention though and that strikes me as their secret sauce for a participation economy. I don't know if other sites can do something similar and have the same effect. I feel like Twitch got big enough (and good enough) that they could do that and people would just engage. Meanwhile people watch some of those streams and don't do anything: we're pretty much non-participatory.
If a creator is all-in on YouTube, they're at the mercy of the algorithm. But if they see YouTube as a cheap dumping ground to advertise content made elsewhere, they are the ones who benefit. For Twitch streamers this typically comes in the form of highlight videos; for e-commerce, the current products for sale are spammed. Slideshows and audio-only video get podcast, audiobook and music content out there. It's a numbers game where most of these videos disappear with sub-1000 view counts, but occasionally one slips through and gets blessed by the algorithm.
And if you look at other platforms it's the same thing - a "weaving" of venues into a web. Lots of Twitter accounts exist to spread memes and sell their merch. Discords exist as a gathering point for Twitch and Patreon subscribers. At various points monetization can be offered but the business doesn't have to rest on any particular one paying for itself because the marginal cost to the creator is too cheap to meter; it's more important simply to keep building the network because it is the network that supports, not the specific trade relations flowing through it.
So as we keep adding more platforms I think the ability to monetize is generally going to improve, because you have less reason to pay attention to any one platform owner's revenue model. And that also means that there's a "flight to quality" that will necessarily take place over the long run: When you straddle multiple platforms, you can afford to take a hit and possibly lose your identity on one of them, as long as you retain hooks elsewhere.
I think some subreddits might work (though I also guess you have to be a regular first to then post your stuff), and YouTube would be the classic go-to, but I'd much rather make it the dumping ground even if only for philosophical reasons.
Amazon doesn't see money that flows through streamlabs, though they do get a massive cut of subscriptions. Gifting subscribers was a brilliant move to raise revenues, but what Amazon really needs is to offer a seamless way to process the donations that provides a good value proposition.
The added ponzi feel of crypto (hot start, flat finish) would require some pretty keen foresight/vision to counter the fad status returns.
From an extroverted POV, it sounds like paradise and an opportunity to grow with an extended circle (of global friends, peers, mentors,etc) outside of your local scene, though that brochure has been popular for ages now (digitally).
If you can avoid the pitfalls of greed, "social economics" and mental illness podiums (social 1.0), you may very well provide an alternative to the previous economic models.
In the quest to seperate business from pleasure, I think the participatory economy leaves much to be desired, but even WFA is still working on that facet.
We seem to have created an MBA-inspired nightmare where all social interactions become a meta-game of promotion, monetisation, and profit, and no activity can possibly have an intrinsic value unless it operates inside that context.
"You're the product" is the oldest profession in the book and not a good look for many.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_(sociology)
Its the antithesis of peer pressure (or vacine if you will), but unless you were raised with it, it may be a foreign characteristic.
Nimby is a fickle mistress, though we can see in China as well as the US that property ownership is part of a warped mating ritual/tradition and has distorted "occupant owned" dwelling statistics (just as much as reits have). 3 for me, none for you was a different economic experiment afaic.
Are you listening to "I don't want to be you anymore" by Billie Eilish? The pressure you speak of may have a gender imbalance, but most guys are cool with a smooth operator (being good at what you do) and tend to avoid lip service.
Analog ad-blockers are a must nowadays.
concision relies on omitting unnecessary words, not whole phrases and sentences. i'd be hard-pressed to restate anything said here with any level of confidence.
Bad haircuts are funny
I’m an artist on Patreon, so are a lot of my friends. Patreon’s somewhere in the middle of this cycle. You can still put some kinds of horny stuff up, and that’s still some of their top earners IIRC even though they don’t like to admit it. But other stuff is banned - if you’re an adult performer who wants to post clips of you Doing Horny Things, Patreon doesn’t want you any more. All my friends who draw horny art have a little twitch of fear every time Patreon announces a policy change, is this gonna be the one that means Patreon kicks them off?
In the creator economy, people regain control and creators earn an asymmetric return on their time.
In the forthcoming "participatory economy" both creators and fans participate in a creator's success.
Advertisers pay because the creator has content worth watching, and so can deliver watchers. The creator and watchers can find an equilibrium where it is in everyone's interest to take the advertisers $, in exchange for something like 50% for the creator, 50% for the viewers. Top twitch streamers, say Ninja, DrD, Shroud (none of which are on the platform currently- LUL) could earn awesome normal people incomes ($250k/annum??), while their viewers get modest income ($10-$30/month?? based on a few assumptions).
In reality, like most situations like this, the creator will be rent-seeking, and have the power to demand more and more of the $ that would otherwise go to the watcher, such that ultimately only the platform and creator get $ (which is sadly the case now).
My guess is that there are already Phds in Economics showing this is true.
Creators generate ad revenues from volume in the order of fractions of cents per viewer. Viewers watch because the media itself has value to them, so it really isn't rent-seeking for the content creators to regard themselves as the value creators and generally keep the money. And if creators think a selective wealth giveaway will help grow their audience or encourage creative contributions from their community they can [and often do] already give selected fans meaningful rewards without a layer of crypto-MLM bullshit on top.
> What if instead the community took a portion of the fee stream and distributed it to the members who most positively impacted the community?
I think it's arrogant to think we can develop a reward system that can both accurately match reward to real-world impact (how do you even quantify that?) and also avoid the trap of influencing users' behavior toward optimizing their virtual rewards (participatory income?) over engaging with their community authentically.
Subscription-based online platforms like Twitch and Patreon already work, what is the great improvement that a "participatory economy" brings?
But to your main point; Are creators/contributors more authentic when struggling to survive, or more authentic when their time/reward matches their basic needs? Are we motivated by rewards, or does lack thereof restrict our production? It depends on individual circumstance or character, or some raw potential of the network effect which has few winners if poorly designed.
> "A seed button will pop up where you can choose how much you give that creator on a monthly basis. You will receive a portion of all seeds given after yours."
Also, how on earth do you measure who contributes accurately?
The author is right, if somebody solves this problem it would make for an interesting company