Creators Are The First To Go
Millions of careers are over and they’re not coming back
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As the world marches into a global recession, companies are cutting back. And what’s the one department that always takes the biggest hit?
Marketing.
That’s really bad news for anyone in the creator economy. It means fewer sponsorships, ads, and affiliate sales. The ones that remain will pay less.
This recession will mark the end of thousands of careers in the creator economy. Not just for the creators themselves, but all the businesses that build tools/resources for creators.
What’s the lesson we can learn here? How do we prevent this from happening again?
The problem with the creator economy is that it relies on almost all the money coming from companies. Centralized organizations, whose only goal is making money.
The second that it’s not profitable for them to sponsor your podcast, they’re going to cut you out. And that’s it. The dream is over.
If we want a creator economy that doesn’t collapse like a house of cards every few years, it needs to be more robust. Built and maintained by protocols. Not companies.
But what does that look like?
A Decentralized Internet
If the creator economy had been built on top of trustless protocols, such as Lens and Audius, things would look a lot differently.
That’s not to say we wouldn’t feel the recession at all. Let’s not get blinded by ideology here. But it wouldn’t sting nearly as much.
Social media companies & the corporations that advertise on them must become extractive. The game they’re playing is making money. And there are very few scenarios where they make the maximum amount of money while giving creators a fair share.
Web3 protocols don’t operate with this incentive. Entirely new business models can exist. From media DAOs like BanklessDAO or community-focused like VeeFriends.
You’ll notice that both these communities are still thriving despite a world economic collapse.
Making Web3 A Reality
Web3 still needs time. There’s a lot that needs to get built. But make no mistake, it’s getting built.
From scaling solutions, modular blockchains, and all kinds of new financial primitives.
The builders are still building.
And if that’s too vague for you, here’s a list of just a few big names building in web3:
This is a good start, but there’s still a long way to go.
We need to have a robust web3 economy before we can have a web3 creator economy. And building an economy doesn’t happen overnight.
