It seems the creator economy is booming. Or is it?

And what even is the creator economy??

Platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and TechTalk are quite happy to advertise the ways they support creators with features and advice. Their aspirational creator hubs give the distinct impression that becoming a creator is akin to getting paid to be yourself.

But that said, when Kate Tyson told me that she doesn’t think the creator economy should exist but that she couldn’t put that in writing, I told her she was wrong—about not being able to put that in writing. Turns out, our mutual friend Charlie Gilkey had told her the same thing. So I arranged a meeting of the minds.

Today's episode is Part 1 of 2 of that conversation. We get into who a creator is, how the creator economy really works, why we value what we value, and how platforms distort the market for our creative work.

Footnotes:

• Kate Tyson: Whiskey Fridays (podcast), Wanderings (on Substack) and Wanderwell Consulting
• Charlie Gilkey: Productive Flourishing and Better Team Habits
• "Millions work as content creators. In official records, they barely exist." by Taylor Lorenz and Drew Harwell on The Washington Post
• "Digital sharecropping" by Nicholas Carr
• "Preferential attachment" via Wikipedia
• "You Gotta Be in it to Win It" by Collin Brooke
• Capital Is Dead: Is This Something Worse? by McKenzie Wark
• "'Wait, I think you're platform-pilled'" by Tara McMullin
• Cory Doctorow on 'enshittification' and platforms being 'too big to care'
• The Twittering Machine by Richard Seymour

• (00:00) - Welcome to the unwieldy conversation hour
• (01:15) - "I don't think the creator economy should exist"
• (04:53) - "People are getting confused about... am I marketing? Am I just being an artist?"
• (06:56) - Who is a creator? And are you one?
• (11:56) - What is digital sharecropping?
• (15:39) - What's the difference between art and content?
• (18:29) - "The point of making content is to get an outcome"
• (20:35) - Platforms run on preferential attachment
• (22:45) - Creator economy? Try Vector Economy.
• (29:03) - "To be successful in the creator economy long term, you have to become a synthesist"
• (31:04) - "We've created virtual social goods"
• (34:39) - "Feeding the algo"
• (39:03) - The "third elephant in the room"
• (42:07) - "It also distorts what we're creating"
• (44:36) - Conclusion: pay close attention
• (47:59) - Credits