Metalabel's Yancey Strickler on Building a Post-Crypto Haven for Artists
Feb 28, 2025
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Yancey Strickler, co-founder of Kickstarter and Metalabel, discusses the evolution of creativity in the digital age. He reflects on his journey through the NFT space and the challenges artists face amidst extractive tech companies. Strickler shares insights on Metalabel's innovative approach to communal creation and equitable revenue splits, exploring the potential of blockchain technology. He also addresses the influence of AI on creativity and the need for artists to cultivate smaller, supportive communities for sustainable growth.
Yancey Strickler highlights the evolution of creativity from a governmental initiative to a democratized societal value, integrated into education and professional practices.
Metalabel aims to create a sustainable ecosystem for artists, allowing them to collaboratively generate income through automated revenue sharing and a community-focused approach.
Strickler advocates for a balanced integration of AI in creativity, emphasizing the importance of artists maintaining agency and fostering connections in the face of corporate advancements.
Deep dives
The Evolution of Creativity
The concept of creativity, which became prominent in the United States during the mid-20th century, was initially a product of governmental research aimed at cultivating divergent thinking as a means of enhancing individual happiness within capitalism. This shift established the idea that creativity is democratizable, allowing anyone to aspire to it in their daily lives. As creativity emerged as a corporate buzzword, it became increasingly incorporated into the American education system, signifying a broader cultural recognition of its value. This historical background showcases how creativity has evolved from a theoretical notion to a foundational component of various professional and personal practices.
MetaLabel's Purpose and Vision
MetaLabel, founded by creative entrepreneur Yancey Strickler, aims to create a new ecosystem for artists that enables them to release their work, share revenues transparently, and collaborate with peers in a more durable framework. The platform seeks to establish an alternate operating system where creative people can support one another and collectively generate income through automated revenue splits. Recently, MetaLabel has been activated more intensely, indicating strong growth and an increasing number of releases, demonstrating the demand for such an innovative platform. This shift reflects a desire for artistic collaboration that transcends the solitary nature of traditional creative work, fostering community and collective success.
Navigating the Challenges of Blockchain
While exploring the potential of blockchain in the creative space, Strickler and his team recognized that a casino-like atmosphere of speculation could hamper artistic intentions within the crypto realm. Their experiences led them to pivot away from blockchain to develop MetaLabel's functionalities through established financial systems like Stripe, focusing on practical monetary flows without the complexities associated with blockchain technologies. This approach aims to mitigate the risks of dependency on volatile crypto markets while providing artists with a straightforward and effective method for monetizing their work. The move showcases the importance of prioritizing the artist's needs over burgeoning technologies that may not serve their best interests.
Embracing AI in Creative Practices
Strickler expresses optimism about integrating AI into the creative process, viewing it as a valuable tool for artists rather than a replacement for human creativity. He highlights the urgent necessity of supporting artists to remain connected and empowered in an era where large corporations might leverage AI to dilute authentic artistic expression for profit. This perspective emphasizes the need for artists to maintain agency and foster community, promoting a collaborative approach to creatively engage with AI technologies. By focusing on human connections and collaborative efforts, the role of artists can evolve positively, allowing them to harness AI as a supportive resource rather than a threat.
Redefining Audience and Community Engagement
The conversation around nurturing smaller, more intimate communities for artists is central to MetaLabel's philosophy, as opposed to relying on broader social media ecosystems. By encouraging creators to engage deeply with their audience, MetaLabel promotes a model where financial exchange and meaningful connections coalesce. This approach challenges traditional metrics of success that prioritize large audiences over genuine interactions, encouraging artists to cultivate more direct relationships with their supporters. In doing so, MetaLabel seeks to redefine what it means to be a successful creative in a rapidly evolving cultural landscape.
A few years ago, the Kickstarter-cofounder and creative entrepreneur Yancey Strickler went down the crypto rabbit hole.
In his brilliant 2019 essay “The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet,” he had articulated his realization that the social web had become a hunting ground for extractive tech companies that preyed on your time, attention, privacy, agency, and money. If artists wanted to escape their clutches and build sustainable careers on their own terms, they needed to hide out in private forums—and the NFT space, with its tight-knit community and promise of decentralization, seemed to offer a safe haven in the scary thicket.
So when he founded Metalabel in 2021 as a new kind of platform for creatives based on communal making, automated revenue splits, and friction-free social distribution, it seemed natural to build it on a crypto foundation. But soon a new realization dawned: there were dangers in the rabbit hole as well, with speculation and a drive toward profit maximization creating a casino environment that many artists found inhospitable.
So, after going down the rabbit hole, Yancey went through the rabbit hole, and out the other side.
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