For Creators, Everything is for Sale

In the past few years, startups like Substack, Patreon, and Shopify have created alternative ways for creators to build businesses online through direct transactions, rather than advertising. This shift exposed a simple fact: in an ad-driven world, creators were generally under-monetizing their audiences.

Independent internet-native creators leverage the internet’s frictionless content creation and distribution, but they’re still trapped by traditional business models like subscriptions and advertising.

A subscription model is based on the promise of the production of future gated content. A publication or creator is paid to continue production, not ... See more

Creators are increasingly discovering ways to monetize their followings and talents, from merch (Fourthwall) to brand marketing (Pearpop)* to distinct product lines (Skims) to communities (Patreon, Fanhouse). Another toolkit for creator monetization, NFTs, will continue to improve, as will the infrastructure for creators to use web3 products to mon... See more