Digital Economy Models

This dynamic — the dependence on our creative labor to develop content and our curation labor to teach recommendation algorithms, while optimizing for ad revenue — is actually the core business model of virtually all content platforms, from YouTube to Facebook, Netflix to Instagram.

Creators and brands need to promote and sell products or services. Right now they pay employees or an agency to perform this function. The employees or agencies may not be users, know what motivations drive the users or have organic relationships with users. They make up for this by spending money on market research and “testing” the market. It’s p... See more