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The Rise of the Decentralized Creator Economy Makes Creators CEOs

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Content, tools, and community are three important factors for the rise of the creator economy, and the decentralized creator economy must have the participation of decentralized social media.

Original title: "Let creators become CEOs, the rise of the decentralized creator economy (Creator Economy)"

Original author: Fang Qinyu, Tao of the Yuan Universe

Last year, the epidemic promoted the outbreak of the live broadcasting industry, behind which there is a bigger trend that is the rising "Creator Economy" (Creator Economy) around the world. Whether it is Douyin or Roblox Corporation, it is essentially a "creator economy".

More and more platforms are launching subsidies for creators to attract them to continue to provide high-quality content for the platform. Although subsidies may be a drop in the bucket for most creators, it creates a possibility that top creators can obtain direct income through content to monetize content instead of using free content to attract traffic for conversion— —The two business models are completely different.

The global social giant Twitter seems to see a model that is more advanced than the "creator economy", that is, the decentralized creator economy. Twitter announced the launch of the decentralized social media project Bluesky in 2019. The project was cold-started in August this year. Twitter founder Jack Dorsey (Jack Dorsey) announced that former Zcash (encrypted privacy project) core developer Jay Grabe will Leading Bluesky, which means "another step in the decentralization of Twitter and social media".

The biggest difference between the decentralized creator economy and the creator economy of this generation is the distribution of benefits. Due to decentralization, "creator-intermediary-social In the interest chain of "media", the "intermediary" may be completely eliminated. Maybe some people don't catch a cold, but the consequences for the centralized world may be shocking. For example, Cheetah Mobile relied on its advertising partnership with Facebook to achieve rapid growth. In the past, its overseas advertising revenue could only reach about 800,000 US dollars per day on the APP side. After Facebook adjusted its algorithm and opened its advertising platform to more third-party advertising platforms, Cheetah Mobile lost its quarterly revenue growth rate of more than 100%, and it was heading for a loss year by year.

1. Creators are vulnerable under the centralized creator economy

Web 2.0 allows users The concept of self-generated content uploaded to the Internet was first proposed by Dale Dougherty, vice president of media at O'Reilly.

The emergence of online media first divided up the cake of traditional media, and the emergence of Web 2.0 redefines content producers, and has carried out a deep revolution in the content industry: content Producers have changed from a small number of experts or professional institutions—everyone can be a content producer, while large platforms have basically monopolized the labor of creators and the way audiences receive information through distribution and algorithm mechanisms, becoming the biggest winners .

In the context of the catalysis of the epidemic and the rise of nerd culture, the "creator economy" has risen.

The current "creator economy" does not protect the interests of creators very well. Extracted by platforms and channels, and may not even have ownership of the brand.

The recent dispute between Li Ziqi and MCN company exposed the weak position of creators. Due to a dispute with the company, the account of "Li Ziqi" has not been updated for 2 months, and now it has been revealed that Li Jiajia, the actor of "Li Ziqi", has sold his contract through equity cooperation. Li Jiajia may lose the right to benefit from Li Ziqi's IP, trademark Right, Li Jiajia himself became the company's content creation tool.

Li Jiajia’s own response to this is “capital is a good means”, mainstream public opinion also stays on the equity relationship between Li Jiajia and the company and the contract itself, and “Li Zi The "7" brand may be damaged after the breakup with Li Jiajia. As for how to prevent such things in the future, there is actually no good solution.

So, is capital digging pits for content creators? In fact, before the Li Ziqi incident, similar ills had been exposed in the pop music industry and the art field because of the unequal status with the channels.

The pop music industry and the art industry have begun to test the waters of NFT, and are trying to initiate a revolution of creators and promote the decentralized creator economy.

Singaporean Chinese singer-songwriter Chen Huanren auctioned his new original work "Nobody gets me" on Opensea in April this year. to sell their own music. Before launching the NFT, he said that the free platform devalues the value of music. It is not easy for him to live with his peers. He expects that the next generation of musicians will work harder. He hopes to test the waters of NFT and bring music to the next generation of Chinese musicians. dawn.

Rappers such as Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, and Juice J also tested NFT in their personal capacity, establishing direct connections with fans and the community. In addition to singers, some innovative music copyright platforms are also seeking decentralization to break the current monopoly of digital music giants, such as Audius, Voice Street, Melos, etc., tilting the share to creators, and using the circular economy within the platform to encourage, Attract creators.

The NFT art trading platform is the most direct for the reform of artists’ royalties. After the emergence of platforms such as Opensea, every circulation of artwork means that artists can enjoy a share from it .

2. Decentralization of social media

Content, tools, community, yes Three important factors for the rise of the creator economy. The large-scale rise of the creator economy is not out of touch with the development of social media.

It is precisely because creators have more motivation to express themselves on social networks, and the content they produce also has realizable value, so there is a wide range of "Creator economy", and in this process, the "like", "follow", "subscribe", and "forward" designed by social networks for creators are all key buttons, paving the way for the creator economy, and the creator economy The essence of is creator capital—on social media, expressed as user-generated capital.

Without decentralized social media, decentralized content creation platforms are niche, and NFT, as a means of payment or identity symbol carrying cultural content, will promote The history of decentralized social media. Therefore, it is no accident that Twitter is keen on NFT. The driving force behind its enthusiasm for NFT is the development from decentralized social media to decentralized creator economy.

In 2019, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey stated on his Twitter that centralized social media encountered obstacles in the development, and Twitter has begun to study Decentralized social media. Jack Dorsey mentioned that in the past, Twitter had the opportunity to develop into a decentralized Internet standard application such as the email protocol SMTP, but because of the situation at the time, Twitter finally chose a different development path and became the current social media.

In addition, he believes that building a decentralized media sector and looking for openly formulated standards will also help solve the current flood of false information on centralized social media, keyboard Bad manners of a chivalrous man.

With the explosive development of NFT this year, Twitter restarted the plan that had been stranded, and announced it with a high profile this month. These measures are actually interlocking. First, an important function in the creator economy, "rewarding", was changed to support encrypted payment, trying to verify the user's NFT avatar, and at the same time set up a fund. In fact, it is to solve the problems of payment, identity verification, and content monetization for the future of decentralized social media. In this series of initiatives, there is also the issue of social currency that needs to be dealt with urgently, so as to connect creators, fans, and communities more smoothly. .

As of press time, Twitter executives released a video about a new feature that users can set NFT profile avatars, which shows that Twitter is ready.

Decentralized creator economy must participate in decentralized social media, that is to say, it is not enough to have Netflix, HBO, Disney, but also Facebook, Join the Twitter guys. Only with decentralized social media can a decentralized content production ecology be built faster, and then the right to speak will be given to creators—everyone is a creator, and creators become their own CEO.