Lessons About the Creator Economy From Twitch and Substack

Instead of focusing so heavily on content expansion, creators and publishers need to be thinking about building features they can provide their most loyal customers-- the subscriber. The goal should be to have subscribers identify directly with the creator and feel invested in their work.

The good news is that the internet is trending back to Kelly’s vision. For example, many top writers on Substack earn far more than they did at salaried jobs. The economics of low take rates plus enthusiastic fandom does wonders. On Substack, 1,000 newsletter subscribers paying $10/month nets over $100K/year to the writer.

In contrast to the podcast example above, where any platform that adopted RSS could instantly have the supply side of the chicken and egg problem solved, Substack did the opposite: it solved the demand side by ensuring all of its consumers already had a way to read newsletter content. This is a really smart strategy, and so as a platform, it has ta... See more