Big Tech vs Crypto: the unnoticed war for content creators
Instagram Reels, TikTok, Snapchat, and now YouTube Shorts. With over $100M in incentives to content creators you have to wonder- how much is the middleman getting?
YouTube has always been the sleeping giant in the Instagram/TikTok/Snapchat competition. With daily usage exceeding 60% in the key Gen Z demographic, adding a TikTok competitor was a no brainer.
Paying people to create content is the natural evolution for platforms that are competing not only for eyeballs on advertisement but also competing to maintain the normalcy of centralized platforms gatekeeping access to creators.
Crypto overall and NFTs specifically are new, speculative, confusing, and because Ethereum has not transitioned off proof of work- an environmental concern.
But they are also the key to content creators controlling the economics of their consumer relationship.
Content creators can't simply ask for money. It's too much overhead to consistently manage, it’s rarely on brand, and there isn't always a clear reward for the consumer.
What NFTs do is allow for standardized, decentralized, digital scarcity. Combine this with crypto allowing for the free market to value content and content creators can have full control over how they generate revenue from attention- cutting out the Big Tech advertising model middleman.
You can look into how the artist RAC created $RAC - a coin that they distribute to early fans, and provide rewards for owning certain amounts of them (access to custom merch, 1 on 1 interviews, group chats, early samples of work, etc.).
I know most of you think this is just exploiting hype and irrationality to make some money.
That’s part of it.
But understand that the media you’ve been exposed to (probably on Big Tech platforms) has a concerted interest in convincing you to be anti-NFT, anti-content creator, and ultimately anti-decentralization of finance & art.
Because they are the middlemen of your attention. Just look at the revenue numbers for these platforms, you’ll quickly realize how little of the pie content creators are getting.
Decentralized art with NFTs and decentralized finance with Crypto are disruptive technologies that Big Tech & Big Banks are right to be worried about.
Not financial advice. Just remember, who profits from your believing what you believe?
$100M doesn’t seem like much anymore huh.