After the Creator Economy

The Creator Economy is creativity in single player mode. It's every creator for themselves, with the algorithms encouraging people to perpetually make as much content as quickly as possible. In contrast, a metalabel is creativity in multiplayer mode. It's a system optimized for mutual aid and support for people collaborating on things tog... See more

The Creator Economy is creativity in single-player mode. Every creator for themselves.

A metalabel is creativity in multiplayer mode. A model for collaboration, collective world-building, and mutual support.

As Austin Robey and Severin Matusek put it in their report,

“After the Creator Economy”: “We want work to be financially valued without compromising our integrity. We want to make meaningful work that we're proud of, not please an algorithm. We want to share work in ways that feel right to us, not compete for attention on a feed. We want to feel see

... See more

Creators are questioning the terms that govern their relationship with the platforms they frequent—and the right of the platforms to set those terms in the first place. How the ecosystem responds—what alternatives are proposed, who builds them, and how—will shape the next phase of the Creator Economy.

Post-individuals have a desire to belong, to be seen and recognised beyond economic compensation or status. As an answer to the individualism of the creator economy, metalabels are a new paradigm where groups of people team up under a shared purpose to create public releases that manifest their point of view.

This is an answer to the individualism of the creator economy.

But just as the gig economy mode of work brought about negative consequences, strong parallels are emerging between the gig economy and creator economy, rooted in the commoditization of work and erosion of worker leverage. For online creators today, a handful of large social media platforms serve as gatekeepers for finding and connecting with audie... See more