Entering the Creator's Economy
It’s always been a creator’s economy. It’s just getting easier to create.
On average, consumers are spending ~4.2 hours a day on apps (a rise of 30% from 2019) resulting in 38% increase in app spend.
That’s because we live in the digital world. We work, study, exercise, care for our health, celebrate and date online.
It’s obvious the future is going more virtual, in all things.
Creator’s Economy
I believe we’re entering a creator’s economy. We’ll see younger people continue to create videos, write newsletters, publish books, produce music, host podcasts and launch businesses.
The legacy system and the 9-5pm job working for the big boss is quietly dismantling before our own eyes.
People are turning to themselves to generate new revenue streams and opportunities. Part of this is due to inflation, higher cost of living and stagnant wages; so young people are hedging their bets by turning into value creation.
This will only continue as millennials and Gen Z desperately seek to create wealth for themselves in a financial world that seems to be in a perpetual bubble.
Creators Act as Internet Filters
At worse, we’re feeling overwhelmed by the amount of information available to us (not to mention feeling screen-fatigued!). At best, we’re making the most of this opportunity by participating in the digital world ourselves.
However, with so much information available to us, we fall into echo chambers of our own making; ceasing to stretch our minds in different directions.
This is why we’re willing to put our blind trust in creators we admire. Creators act as filters of the internet for us.
But if we consume the same information that reinforces our biases (and creators who confirm that way we think), we’ll get the same results and ideas.
Some of the most enlightening ideas are the ones that come from varied life experiences, new books, museums, mountain hikes, and random chats with strangers. It comes from everywhere outside our daily grind. Not just from creators we follow.
Crypto & the Creator Economy
Crypto enables creators to bypass gatekeepers (plus their high fees) and to own their work. It’s why NFTs were all the rage a couple of months, and why I suspect we’ll continue to see NFTs around for a while.
(You don’t need to be an NFT artist to be a creator. We’re all creators, in one way or another, even if we’re just engaging online. That Facebook post you published? That’s creating content.)
What we’re seeing with crypto is an an extension of the evolution of value creation - from cave art, to painting, to digital artwork, to gifs and memes, to NFTs. NFTs allow a creator to prove ownership without a company in-between.
In exchange for the work that NFT creators are doing, they’re earning ownership and revenue without paying a third-party for any services. For the first time in awhile, creators are being empowered.
Because this is relatively a new model, we’re still at the product and pricing discovery stage but people’s short-term view on economics and reward taints this.
They aren’t willing to bet on crypto and creation because it doesn’t work right now. Just because it doesn’t work now doesn’t mean it won’t work later. It’s just painfully slow to create revolutionary technology like crypto.
After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Final Thoughts
You are a creator by nature. Whether that is sketching or creating NFTs or writing.
I encourage you to discover your creativity and to explore from the wide-ranging ideas all around us. To think how you can bring more creativity and value to the world.
Figure out what your unique value proposition is and then share it wildly with the world. Here are a few quick tips to help you gets tarted:
Figure out your curiosity.
Create.
Align incentive.
Build community.
Be authentic.
It’s always been a creator’s economy and it’s getting easier to create. It’s never been a better time than now to bet on yourself.
“The great online game: No map. Few rules. Infinite resets. Billions of players” - Jack Butcher