Making a Living Off 'Likes': The New Influencer Paradigm | Andreessen Horowitz

Earning is way more powerful than getting likes. If those two elements can be interwoven into the fabric of a network, it will mean people can make money from their time in new ways. Today, the bluntest tool in social is where you build an audience and then try to sell to it. We are going to see so many new experiments around paying people for cont... See more

These features create new monetization paths for businesses and creators through selling products, providing another way to participate in the Passion Economy. Because brand sponsorships were mainly accessible to creators with large followings, the addition of e-commerce functionality should lower the barrier to earning income from the platform.

Influencers, now a slowly fading cliché in the Internet’s tableau vivant, found success articulating the cult of personality, and marketing themselves as direct-to-consumer-goods. The shift away from this algorithmic surrender can be traced to the macro and micro “creator economies” spawned by the likes of Patreon, Substack, OnlyFans and even Cameo... See more

The big trend we see here is that over time, creators are becoming more diversified in their revenue streams and are being funded directly by their fans.