The game is rigged (rethinking the creator economy)

“We write to the machine, it collects and aggregates our desires and fantasies, segments them by market and demographic and sells them back to us as a commodity experience.”

The second way the game is rigged is how these platforms manipulate unpaid labor.

The first way the game is rigged is that we’re playing a game that wasn’t designed for us.

The creator economy is still in its relative infancy. The truth is we don’t know what the creator economy is yet—but that doesn’t stop me from asking the question! So what is the creator economy? And why is it making so many people miserable?

And, I still have questions. What is the long-term viability of the creator economy? Granted, most people won’t want to be creators. But will there be enough opportunity for those who want to be creators—and put in the work toward that goal—to pursue this work at a sustainable revenue threshold? What guardrails or policy changes need to be implemen... See more

Gina told me she was excited to see evidence of a shift in how creators build businesses they have more control over. These are “independent” creators—folks building their own platforms and communities. According to Gina, the research shows that there are 4 characteristics of this new way forward:1) Independent creators own their data rather than r... See more

This number might be hard to believe, but 93% of creators surveyed said that being a creator has negatively impacted their lives. (And that point, it’s probably worth asking, “Well, why would anyone become a creator? Or stay a creator?” And that’s a fair question. I guess it’s the same reason people keep playing the lottery: the potential upside dr... See more

This is why answering the question of the creator economy is so important to me. There is plenty of opportunity to go around. I believe we will continue to see novel ways to build a livelihood and increasing numbers of people participating in the economy outside of the container of a “job.” But right now, there is a lot of confusion about the diffe... See more

While platforms don’t recognize our contributions as labor, it certainly feels like a job. Labor writer Amelia Horgan calls it “the jobification of everyday life.”