12 DAYS OF WEB3

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11

How does web3 help creators?

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The Web3 creator economy refers to a new way for artists, musicians, writers, and other creative people to share their work and earn money using blockchain technology and decentralized platforms. It’s a shift from the traditional Web2 platforms like YouTube or Instagram, where creators rely on advertising revenue or sponsorships.

A brief history of the creator economy

To date, the creator economy has evolved in three stages:

The first influencers emerged in the late 90s and early 2000s when people started to blog and post online to gain a following.
In 2007, YouTube started monetizing videos through ads and gave creators a share of this payment. Other web2 platforms followed suit.
From 2015 onwards, platforms emerged to help creators own their brand and monetize in new ways. Examples include Twitch, Substack, Patreon and other platforms letting creators monetize through subscriptions instead of ads.

The tension between creators and web2 platforms

Creators make all the content for web2 platforms like Youtube, Instagram, Twitch, and Twitter.

For a period, the web2 platforms worked side by side with creators to grow. However, as platform growth started to plateau, web2 platforms began looking towards creators to extract value:

This came in the form of taking 30-40% of a creator’s earnings while not letting the creator own their audience. As a result, most creators have never been able to generate a consistent income stream to sustain themselves.

Why is web3 different?

We just covered web3 topics such as cryptocurrencies, wallets, DeFi, NFTs, and DAOs. Let’s go back to our first email.

The point of web3 is that it lets creators – not platforms – own and use the value they create.

By owning their upside, creators can:

Monetize their content any way they’d like
Port their data to any platform they’d like (no need to restart their journeys)
Earn rewards for helping a platform grow
Form a stable and authentic relationship with their fans

Essentially, we’re building a new creator economy:

Source: Crypto fundamentals deck (Patrick Riveria)

This is an economy where creators and fans – not middlemen – own the upside from their work. That’s why we’re excited about web3.

In our next section, we’ll cover: “How do I explore more?”

Learn more