In 2020, things are very different. Charli D’Amelio, a TikTok star that 99% of you have likely never heard of, makes $48,000 per post. By uploading one short video every day, the 16-year-old D’Amelio can earn 20 times more than the world’s most successful singer earned in 1801. Charli is scalable in a way that was possible only for a tiny group of ... See more

 it’s easier than ever to make content when that content is participatory/responsive to other content and built on top of it, whether through subtweets, TikTok responses, hard-forks, or composable smart contracts. In short, the shifts we’ve seen play out over the past decade in the creator economy are now transpiring in tech. Just as the rise ... See more

First, platforms have an opportunity to build an underlying social graph of unique data and then to self-cannibalize by letting other platforms draw on it: the real financial opportunity for every platform, in other words, is to become a protocol that others build on top of.

TikTok’s feed is not based on any social or follower graph. Instead, videos pop up based on an algorithm that prioritizes engagement, irrespective of who users follow. This dilutes the identity of creators, resulting in very weak network effects. However, it has remained viable because of its high CTC ratio — about 34% of daily active users in the ... See more