A lot of people disagree with me and think that the internet has opened up a huge amount of opportunity for creative people to build a presence and earn, but I think the view is largely through confirmation bias, or at least, only part of the picture. While there are more platforms and the possibility for an individual to access a wider market has increased, people will ultimately still gather around what is popular, meaning the wider market will support a narrow set of people who will earn enormously.
For example, in 2019, Taylor Swift reportedly earned 185 million dollars. This wouldn't have been possible pre-internet and especially pre- social media, as her market reach would have been heavily restricted by her marketing reach and pre-internet, marketing was very expensive. However, while there were the huge stars like Michael Jackson pre-internet, there was also more space for localized stars. For instance, pubs were filled with local bands that could earn a couple hundred dollars on a Saturday night - and every pub had a local band play.
I believe that while through the internet we can get the impression of a lot more talent getting supported, I think that is only because a lot more talent gets global exposure. But at the local level, there is likely to be fewer earners in total, as we no longer have to consume locally and the culture has developed to desire Instagrammable consumer moments, which inevitably means "special" which is rarely local.
It is about building attention and through the media channels we have developed and support, that attention can be focused on individuals. Even though each consumer might be spending less per experience, we are able to consume more experiences that are cheaper to produce, as the supply chain from start to consumption is more efficient.
The same consolidation of attention is probable in regards to company brands also, where while consumer spending has increased, the range that consumers are buying has decreased, or the concentration of spending has pooled into only a handful of major products, with less depth in the spread, even if the tails are longer.
When I was a kid, there was the "Buy Australian" messaging, but even at that point the waters were very muddy in terms of supply chain as, what constituted as Australian was difficult to pin down, when materials are sourced globally and even assembly may have been done overseas. Is designed in Australia enough? These days, the localization of various types of content is even more convoluted, as not only are the supply chains prior to purchase complicated and opaque, the proceeds from sale get redirected through various channels to escape tax obligations. Is it buying Australian if the company does their accounting through their accounting is done through a shell in Lichtenstein and pays close to zero tax locally?
What this means is that while there is the impression of opportunity and for those who make it there is a huge amount of wealth potential, at a local level there may be a degradation in realistic opportunity, as human attention only has limited bandwidth and a great deal of it is taken up with what is already mass adopted. While the markets are much larger, the realistically available market may have shrunk, as rather than competing with locals at the local level, one has to compete with megastars at the local level. This is apparent if we consider that a platform like YouTube, where people are more likely to consume from the "professionals" rather than the locals. This means that the pro can gather the collective mass needed to earn well, but a local would never be able to gather enough at the local level and if the content doesn't "travel well" internationally, there is little hope to monetize.
It is possible that platforms like Hive will be able to somewhat break this pattern to some degree, as they offer a direct relationship between creator and consumer, meaning that while stars will still gather a lot of the attention, the spread of value is likely to go wider and deeper at a local level, as people will see the benefit of "buying local" again, supporting economic activity through their consumption with transparency on more of the affects it has to do so.
While the advertising model is harmful in many ways, one of the problems is the lack of alternative competition. Advertising has become the monetization model for the internet with very little enduser choice in the matter, but crypto offers an alternative to this, allowing for monetization of content without requiring the advertising clicks to pay for it. This means that from a local perspective, locals supporting locals will actually provide the chance to earn again at the local level, without having to satisfy the click needs of a global platform to earn.
A thousand people giving 10 cents a week is 100 dollars, and this kind of relationship is possible through platforms like Hive, especially once the free transaction are factored in. With the coming "recurring payments" options, this gives rise to Patreon style platforms without having to rely on a centralized provider for value distribution, so that demonetization like what has happened to PornHub in the last week isn't possible, at least in the same way. Through these kinds of innovations and possibilities, there will actually be increased opportunity for users at a wider range of locations and where locals can keep their wealth locally - rather than spending it on the centralized services that do not inject back into their local economy.
Now, this doesn't actually mean people will only consume locally, it is just that the distributed platforms will be able to be built to cater to content groups at a more granular level, where real people are able to compete for attention, rather than the engineered performers pushed by services that skim off the top. This also will hopefully include the application markets, that can leverage each other to reach larger groups of users, but be very light in organizational structure and running costs.
While individual companies are all looking to be unicorns, what is more valuable for society as a whole is when individuals can generate income and wealth themselves, each being an owner. This way, like Hive, the financial value of the "company" is the value of the people who use and own the platform, not the platform itself. Thousands of people who have a spectrum of ownership levels, all benefiting from the platform at a local level, without having to be managed through centralized gateways.
So, while I think that web 2.0 has encouraged a decrease in opportunity overall, it has also given rise to a wider range of content creators, it is just that the vast majority has no opportunity to monetize. This means that with the capabilities of web 3.0, they will be able to increase their opportunity and start to shift their focus away from centralized platforms and the reliance on getting their attention, and a more granular approach to serve and get the attention of who will love their content instead - directly. This model increases monetization options outside of advertising alone, which will simultaneously increase the potential for innovation as a content creator, as well as collaboration locally and in distributed groups across the globe.
Because of this, while I believe there has been a crushing down of creators over the last decade or two, I think we are approaching a point where we will start to turn the corner and start to expand opportunity for creators again. It will be somewhat of a digital return to the idea of the "smith", locals who are great at what they do with a community of people who appreciate them for it and are willing to support them so they can keep providing. We are already experimenting with this on Hive of course and while there are teething problems, the direction is indicating that there is viability in the model with the potential to expand and scale, as well as have a diverse range of attempts made to improve it, on and off the Hive Blockchain.
With the growing unrest due to economic opportunity at a global level, there has never been a better time to provide options for individuals to create, develop and earn, by connecting them directly with the community, bypassing the controlled gateways. It isn't going to be a smooth pathway forward, it is going to be a bumpy ride of opportunity and drawback on many pathways, but hopefully we will find ways to empower more of us along the way.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
