The content creator economy. part I.

ast week, I discussed cult capitalism; today, I want to dive into another rising trend: the Content Economy, which revolves around content creation.

The internet, social media, podcasts, blogs, and more are massive content production engines, consumed daily by billions of people. Interestingly, most of this content is free and easily accessible. This has led, on the one hand, to a decline in quality (30 years ago, there was only a fraction of today’s content, but its quality was exponentially higher) and, on the other hand, to many businesses failing.

Ironically, in an era of unprecedented content interaction, traditional content-focused businesses like print and TV media are struggling to stay viable.

Struggling Media vs. Thriving Giants

These companies struggle while giants like Facebook, WeChat, influencers, and social media stars thrive. This is partly because consumers have changed and are looking for something different, but also due to the inherently technological nature of these new mediums.

In all these cases, the content is free for the consumer because someone else pays for it: advertisers. The content isn’t truly free; instead of paying with money, we pay with our attention and data. That’s why it’s more accurate to say content isn’t free—it’s sponsored.

However, this sponsorship benefits the distributor, not the content creator, as the distributor has access to consumers. But this is changing.

The Rise of the New Content Economy

The new Content Economy is emerging on platforms like OnlyFans and Patreon. These are just the first, not the last. The idea is to facilitate direct interaction between creators and their fans without sponsors acting as middlemen.

Fans pay money to access the content they care about, bypassing sponsorships and paying for exclusive content instead. For now, this is limited to certain industries and niches, but that will change.

The 1,000 True Fans Concept

I recommend this article, which explains it well: 1000 True Fans? Try 100.. If you don’t have time to read it, the premise is simple:

• Today and in the future, a creator only needs 1,000 or even 100 fans paying $1,000 or $100 annually to make a decent living.
• The process is easier than you might think.

This concept is gaining traction among creators, who seek more profitable ways to monetize their content. This is because platforms like Spotify, YouTube, etc., aren’t fulfilling that role. Platforms make significant profits, but creators don’t—except for the top 5%, who are used as examples. The other 95% do not.

What's next? And that’s about to change. Next week, I’ll tell you how. 🙂

Where to find me

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