The Birth of a New Economy

A Change is Coming Soon

Author

Jim Louderback
February 24, 2025

This Week: Creators have changed dramatically over the last 5 years, according to a new study from Patreon, and the relentless march of AI will continue to drive big changes in the creator economy.  Plus, the latest from TikTok - including decimating trust and safety, music advances, and much more

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HOW AI WILL BREAK THE CREATOR ECONOMY

Last week I talked about how and why YouTube is old media – and by extension so are most creators and other creator economy companies too.  Some took it the wrong way – I came not to bury YouTube, just to share how its priorities are shifting is it enters its third decade. Heck, lots of 21-year-olds have a bright future ahead of them even though they’re all grown up.

But in transitioning from disrupter to incumbent, creator economy stalwarts have opened themselves up to disruption.  And increasingly powerful AI gives disrupters radioactive Go-Go juice to accelerate their development.  A16z VC Andrew Chen just laid out the threat matrix and attack patterns for disruptive startups taking aim at the media and the creator economy.  Chen looks at the landscape not through the eyes of incumbents digging moats, but those storming the gates. 

Opportunities abound.  Perhaps you want to sell AI tools to established companies, like what Opus Clip or what @Paul Cary is doing at IJY.fyi.  You could disrupt established creators and producers, combining Eleven labs and Hour to build something like @Ben Relles’ Reid.AI.  The platforms are another target – like how Butterflies.AI is targeting X and Instagram.  Chen lays out many of the attack vectors startups will use to probe and iterate upon - but many more remain.

If you’re an established company, keep an eye out for upstarts looking for chinks in your armor.  Start arming yourself and prepare to be the disruptor not the disrupted. Keep an eye on what former Adobe CSO @scott Belsky does at a24, or how his old company madly integrates AI to blunt upstarts like Auggie and Descript.

It’s not just the creator economy.  As Chen points out, virtually all industries are in the crosshairs.  But it’s a safe bet that the creator and media economy will be disrupted quickly.  My bet?  Only Fans goes down first.

Next week I’ll have details on a new media startup seeing early returns on an AI-first channel that’s delivering surprising numbers in just a few weeks.

Oooooh, it’s so shiny!

CHANGES COMING TO MEDIA PLANNING AND BUYING

For a more practical look at how AI will change media planning and buying – and thus advertising-dependent creators -  take a look at this new research from Madison and Wall (commissioned by Google).  It provides a good history of pre-digital media planning and then attempts to predict how ads, sponsorships and marketing will change.  Key takeaways for creators?

  • Performance-based sponsorships are likely to supplant traditional brand deals (@Arthur Leopold’s startup Agentio is focused on this).

  • Short-form and commerce integrations will thrive too, as traditional brand-deals fade.

  • Creator revenue mix shifts towards more commission and affiliate revenue – this should benefit smaller creators with highly engaged audiences.

  • AI-generated ads will replace UGC and other creator efforts, but IRL creators will still need to seed the campaigns with creative ideas.

  • YouTube, Meta and other platforms will control more and more of the ad spend, meaning creators will need to align their sales strategies with even more obscure AI algorithms.

  • To thrive, creators must understand AI-driven ad dynamics – or build their own communities of superfans instead (see next story).

PATREON STUDY CHRONICLES THE CHANGING STATE OF THE CREATOR

While looking forward, it is also helpful to look back.  According to a new study from Patreon, creators have changed significantly over the last five years.  Pre-pandemic, it was all about likes, subs, views, followers, and comments.  Now they’re more focused on creating content that resonates, finding financial stability and building a community of known super-fans (what Patreon’s report calls “Core Fans”).  It’s not new – many of us in the creator space have been championing these issues for years.  But their study showed that message resonating broadly. Users, too, are watching a lot of short form, but value longer more.  They’re 70% more likely to pay for long form compared to short. 

Patreon’s report isn’t perfect.  They explore algorithmic angst by inventing a monolithic villain called “The Algorithm.”  Implying that TikTok’s FYP is equivalent to YouTube, Snap or Pinterest does creators a disservice.  

It’s also unclear who they studied. They surveyed a “representative sample” of 1,000 US creators and 2,000 fans, but how did they source them?  I asked Patreon for clarification but didn’t get a response before posting.    The Patreon-specific data at the end of the report  is particularly suspect: just 1 in 5 creators and 1 in 7 fans surveyed use Patreon - a vanishingly small sample. Until we know more about the statistical underpinnings, consider the study directional not predictive.  Watch my video for more analysis.

  • Related: Shadow-bans, demonetization and other shenanigans drive significant creator angst.  Now the US FTC is leaning in, looking for examples of how digital platforms may have stifled your free speech. Did this happen to you or your clients?  Read the FTC’s post for details on how to share your stories

MUSIC ROCKS ON TICKETYTOK

DoubleT released a custom study on how awesome it’s been for the music industry.  Crazy stats, including how 84% of 2024’s Billboard Global 200 went viral on TikTok first. Gotta hand it to them – I never would have seen Plankton’s Pink Pony Club otherwise. Download the report here.

  • Related: TikTok’s global head of music BD decamps for Apple (more TikTok HR upheaval below).

SPONSOR:  The NFL and YouTube scored big with the Super Bowl LIX Flag Football Game during Super Bowl weekend, blending sports, culture, and Creator power to hit 6M live views on YouTube. With stars like IShowSpeed, Kai Cenat, Teyana Taylor, Quavo, Sexyy Red, and YouTube Creators Deestroying, Mark Phillips, Khaby Lame, Adam W, and MMG - it’s a bold look at the future of fan engagement and flag football’s Olympic rise. Read more about the game and results here: https://www.lbbonline.com/news/nfl-and-youtube-set-new-standard-with-star-studded-flag-football-game-during-super-bowl-week 

  • Note from Jim – That flag football game was so fun to watch. Looking forward to seeing the sport develop on YouTube and beyond.

QUIBIS    

YOUTUBE

META

  • Paid Comments:  Instagram updates its Partnerships Ads to include Testimonials, which appear to be sponsored text comments.  Creators can turn them off if the brand stops paying, or the product gets cancelled. I like the idea but wonder how brands will price the unit – or if they simply become value-ads. 

  • Cage Match!  Zuckerberg Trounces Musk in a “Who’s More Hated” survey from Pew Research.

  • A Girdle Round About the Earth:  Meta’s laying 31,000 miles of undersea cable to accelerate its AI ambitions.  Zuck = Puck?

  • Eliminate the Ninnies and the Twits:  Meta wants creators to help make Facebook cool again.

  • VR Creator Fund:  Meta will reward creators with a piece of its new $50M “Meta Horizon Creator Fund”

  • Wait, What? Looks like Snap CEO Evan Speigel is moonlighting as VP Product at Meta.  Alas, I fear it is an unpaid role.

Evan is so well rounded!

TIKTOK

OTHER CREATOR ECONOMY

  • Whither Infinite Retention: Facebook will only retain live streams for 30 days, and Twitch cuts streamers back to just 100 hours of highlights and uploads.  The beginning of the end?

  • Event For Dummies: LinkedIn teaches you how to do events and plugs its Live platform too. Their “Framework” includes everything from wardrobe recommendations to how to configure LinkedIn. Worth bookmarking, but it’s no substitute for experience.

  • Influencer Consolidation:  Ad giant Publicis buys Brazil influencer marketing agency BR Media.  Creator economy companies are still red-hot.

  • Dubai Wants To Be Your Creator Hub:  I had a great chat with Net Influencer about last month’s 1 Billion Followers Summit, the UAE’s move to get 10,000 creators to relocate and more from the middle east.

  • Newsletter Metrics:  LinkedIn adds new newsletter metrics, including open and send rates.  I can’t find them on my newsletter, alas.  Soon – hopefully!

  • Europe Creator Economy Size:  New research shows its expected to grow from $14B US to $112B in 2034.  That’s a 23% CAGR! 

  • Beastly Podcast:  Jimmy Donaldson sits down with Steven Bartlett in a wide-ranging interview that’s worth a listen.

  • Reddit Paywall: The CEO says it’s coming (for new stuff). Not sure that this idea has legs, as it’s mostly user-submitted content with communities run by volunteers.

  • Not Amazin: Amazon kills off its TikTok clone where creators reviewed and sold products.  This is yet another fail on Amazon’s attempt to woo and understand creators.  Twitch seems even lonelier today.

  • Twitch Crushes January:  Latest numbers from Rainmaker.gg and StreamElements show Twitch started the year right, handily beating its fall numbers.  Caedrel came in as number one, while Kai Cenat dropped to 9.

  • Plato’s Streaming School:  Kai Cenat wants to open a university where presumably you bow to the masters and learn the secrets of the stream. Please, please call it the Kaiceum.

  • Cutting Back:  New tariffs and geopolitical issues in the US cause creators to pull back on product launches and other monetization schemes involving Chinese partners.

  • Don’t Sleep on IRL:  Good review of Adam Mcintyre’s Chronically Online live tour.  You don’t need a million followers to fill a room, as long as there’s passion and community.

  • Wednesday Will Be Rough:  Watch out world – it could get messy. 

CREATOR TECH – AI, WEB3, VR, MORE

RESEARCH

  • Outdated: Pew mines its old research to attempt to paint a picture of popular TikTok creators in the US. But things change fast and 2023 data isn’t as useful as research done in the last few months.

Where’s Jim:  Excited about SXSW, there’s so much fun stuff going on. I’ll be speaking about the past, present and future of the Creator Economy on Saturday, and then again on Monday at the Fediverse House.  Aside from that, I’m madly curating The Creator Lab at NAB April 6-9 and building Industry Day at Open Sauce in July. I’m writing this on a plane to Nantucket, where I’m getting a jump on the summer season (I hear the beaches are EMPTY in February!).  See you somewhere soon, I hope.

100% written by me – no human or AI ghostwriters were involved in the production (except for the cover art!).

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I've built and sold multiple creator economy startups to top media companies - including Discovery and Paramount. Subscribe here on LinkedIn to get this newsletter every Monday.

Let me know what you think – email me at [email protected]. Thanks for reading and see you around the internet.