Thread by @ljin18

The creator economy is starting to resemble the gig economy, with commoditization of workers and economic precarity masqueraded as entrepreneurship.

New post about the perils of the creator economy and how we move forward from here:

li.mirror.xyz/Rgk2La8izmn5La…

The gig economy--though home to many valuable companies--has had a controversial impact on labor, eroding a century's worth of worker rights & creating widespread precarity.

The creator economy is now experiencing the same.

If we're not thoughtful about building platforms, we can easily recreate the problems of the real-world economy in the online world.

Even though the creator economy is often framed as an improvement upon the gig economy, parallels problems and risks are emerging for workers.

Those parallels include:

- Over-supply and competition between creators
- Exploitation of creator labor (unpaid/underpaid labor)
- Insecurity and volatility (business risks are externalized & shifted onto creators)
- Intermediation and taxation (unilaterally determined pay)

Where do we go from here?

Here are the principles we should uphold going forward:

1. Creator and user ownership & portability of data, relationships, and content. This would weaken platforms' lock-in and enable creators to operate outside of a handful of platforms.

We can go even further with ownership: software itself can become community-owned and operated.

This creates the maximum incentive alignment between platforms & their participants, with creators directly influencing governance and decision-making.

a16z.com/2019/03/02/coo…

2. Credibly neutral creator mechanisms that don't favor
any particular users/segments, and are open and neutral.

Applying the veil of ignorance to creator platforms allows us to test policies, monetization mechanisms, funds, and product mechanics for fairness and impartiality.

3. Creator-friendly business models

Offering more direct monetization models (users paying creators) can encourage creators to align their content with what end users value vs. creating content that maximizes watch time, and support a creator middle class.

4. Creator interdependence and solidarity

Today’s creator economy, as it exists on centralized social platforms, pits creators in competition with each other in a constant battle for fleeting attention.

My hope is that we can build platforms and mechanisms that incentivize mutual support between creators, where one creator’s success does not come at the expense of another’s.

What could creator solidarity and cooperation look like? Creator DAOs--where members vote on creative projects, co-create content, have all revenue flow to a treasury, and share in ownership--hold a glimpse into this more cooperative future.

Lots more detail in the blog, plus open questions:

- What channels could exist to institutionalize creator voice?
- What forms of online collective action could emerge?
- How does discovery and distribution work in a post-social media platform world?

Tysm to these smart folks for reading drafts: @patrickxrivera @jessewldn @AliaksandrH @mattdlockyer @LilaShroff @Alber_Emege @albiverse