Lessons About the Creator Economy From Twitch and Substack

The challenge, or opportunity, for companies like Substack is to figure out how to help creators reach new audiences and grow without having to compromise on ownership. The aggregators of the early internet unlocked great power for creators through building central gathering places. We are doing the same with the Substack app and features—like Reco... See more

You probably want to keep discovering new articles from new authors all the time. You want new learning experiences by matching with new authors. But once you discover a good one, you want to read more—or maybe even everything—from them. Since there are a lot of long-term relationships, there’s a big risk of disintermediation. This is the insight t... See more

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.