The Era of Paying for Content

This allowed platforms to build a powerful flywheel. Creative content attracted users, and more users in the audience attracted more creators. Funny enough, these platforms never had to pay a cent for any of that content to creators. In this economic reality, people and companies shared their creative work happily and for free: all in the name of r... See more

We’re now sobering up to this awareness: the value of content. Entertaining, enlightening, and informing people is a valuable economic activity. This change in the zeitgeist broke this assumption that creative and quality content will flow into platforms without real incentives. We’re moving quickly from a world of free content to a world of paid c... See more

Platforms have already realized there’s no going back to a world where quality content is free. They will continue to open their pockets and grow their tentacles further into the creator economy, becoming more direct buyers of content, as well as mediators for those who want to buy content. Now, it’s all about re-shuffling priorities to building pr... See more

“(Platforms) need to either offer some way to monetize that content on-platform, or… they'll become just a promotional hub, where people essentially advertise the content that they're monetizing on other platforms” - Josh Constine

Platforms are now scrambling to compete as “creator platforms”, with a lot of effort poured into ensuring that content can generate real economic value for creators, either by paying for it themselves or by helping the audience pay.

An example of such a value leakage is Twitter being widely used by Substack writers to drive growth for their newsletters, and Substack is where a creator will effectively put their best content and exchange value.