){kind=logo}
Hey you!
The promise was beautiful. Yes, the ambition was to offer to every content creator the possibility to monetize his creations, and this in different ways (advertising, partnerships, subscriptions, etc…). In practice, things are not so simple. It seems that once again, the most famous are the ones who get away with it, to the detriment of the others. The reason? The multiplication of subscriptions and other payment systems. The result? Users have to choose, and they usually go for the least risky. Passion Media explains the subject in more detail.
A market where disparities are growing
Tips, micropayments, subscriptions… There are many ways to support content creators. These are all opportunities to help them perpetuate their work, but also risks of competition. Users must then choose, favoring some creators over others, according to their available budget. As a result, the disparities are growing.
4 figures to remember about these income inequalities
- Lives: Recently, the Twitch platform was hacked and a lot of data was revealed to the public. One of them? The revenues generated by different content creators. The verdict? The top 1% of all streamers earn more than half of all revenue on the platform.
- Video: A few content creators have managed to pull their weight and now generate hundreds of thousands, even millions of euros each year. Unfortunately, this is not the majority. The vast majority of winners on Twitch earned less than $120 in 2021.
- Newsletters: Substack, the newsletter application, follows the same trend. The top 10 publications generated over $20 million in subscriptions overall for the year. The majority of other newsletters earn only a few thousand, if not hundreds of dollars.
- Podcasts: On the audio side, it’s the same thing. The top 1% of creators generate the most revenue, but they also generate almost all of the advertising revenue. In other words? They are the only ones, or almost the only ones, who can monetize this format to date.
A key concept to remember: the distribution of power law
Experts and researchers have taken up the subject. It is a way to analyze the evolution of society, the trends, and the future prospects. In 2003, the theorist Clay Shirky was already talking about the “distribution of the law of power”. In other words? In a market where thousands of content creators are free to propose their creations, only a small part of them will emerge and distinguish themselves. They will then receive a disproportionate share of the audience, and of the associated revenues. And if this phenomenon can be accentuated by the strategic decisions of some platforms, it is mostly a natural phenomenon. Fame leads to fame. That’s all.
So how do you give everyone the same opportunities?
This phenomenon has already been verified in the news media. The big national and international media (Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, etc…) capture the vast majority of the audience. On the other hand, many regional media are struggling to get noticed. In the world of content creation, it seems that the same thing is happening. So how do we avoid this phenomenon? How do we reshuffle the deck to allow every creator to stand out? To give everyone the same opportunities?
