Platforms, Creative Communities, and the Need for a Radical Reimagining - The Reboot

It’s approaching problems the way every late-stage internet platform does, at least before it discovers its limits: by presuming total victory and control over the industry it’s been working to enclose. Spotify’s success as a basic streaming service eventually entitled it to a central role in how music is made and distributed. Why shouldn’t its suc... See more

One way to rethink these platforms is to think about all the users across the 90-0-1 ratio; to figure out how to share a platform's overall value with all its contributors, big and small. In the creator economy, this means rewarding readers and curators alongside creators.

Our digital systems generate noise and there's little the algorithms can do a... See more

Ongoing marketing costs are one of a couple of major ways that Long Tail platforms have shifted significant risks back to the creators. Up-front costs are another. Spotify pays nothing for a song that never gets played, and Airbnb pays nothing for a room that happens to stay vacant; these platforms have no skin in the game. Meanwhile, the musician ... See more