Content Alone Will Kill the Creator Economy

But increasingly, creators with loyal followings are creating their own independent offerings—ranging from paid courses to niche communities to vertical social networks—with the basis of competition shifting to curated content and community, trust in a particular creator, and alignment to specific topics.

Community is internet-native media. Yet the vast majority of creators and publications are still built around the value of content . It’s no wonder why today’s digital media businesses are deeply broken.

As long as their audience is on the media networks, they’re only renting it, not owning it. There’s a whole class of startups whose main purpose is to help creators convert media network followers into owned community members.

Essentially, creators have to balance the distribution potential of certain platforms with the risk of becoming dependent on them, and monetize by either earning a little off of each fan from mainstream content for a big audience or earning a lot off of deeper connections to a smaller set of fans through niche content.