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C. Creator Economy(or Group Economy)
A micro-economy getting developed around creators is nothing new. For instance, in the 15th century Florance, a complete art industry got created around the likes of Michelangelo, da Vinci, and Verrochio. Talented great artists were essentially solopreneurs who would have a team with them, interns and helpers. These artists come as entrepreneurs who would be commissioned by wealthy entities like churches and emperors to bring art into their properties.
Later entire music industry became a creator economy. Every composer would have a band that would have sound engineers, recorders, to musicians who played different instruments. This trend started with Opera, and we all know how Mozart made music composition an eternal art and business.
Goldsmiths, Potters, and Farmers have all remained solopreneurs and have to date continued the creator economy that is around one individual.
Creator Economy of Today
Today creator’s economy is centered around mostly content and art creators and social media influencers. They create informative, educative, and entertaining content in the form of videos, blogs, animation, and graphics, and get paid by the consumers through subscriptions, but mostly marketing and promotion.
Another formidable Creator’s economy has been the software App market. Youngsters build application software for mobiles which are used by millions of users. These apps are distributed through app stores.
Why Creators Economy is shortlived?
One of the classical examples of a creator’s economy is Alexander’s army. Alexander was way ahead of his time in understanding warfare and its logistics. Was a fierce warrior, who was also educated by the likes of Aristotle. He had great respect for the local cultures and unlike other war heroes in history, he never destroyed and plundered local temples of the places he conquered. He included the conquered land in his empire, rather than plundering the way Romans did.
So as Alexander kept winning wars, local armies would join this charismatic warrior. The Macedonian army’s rise in 330-323 BCE is almost like today’s scaling rate. From the Bank of Meditorrian to the Bank of Sindh River, every kingdom was part of Alexader’s empire. However, after his defeat in India at the hands of Chandragupta Maurya led a combined Indian army, on his way back home, the creator-entrepreneur fell ill. When he was asked who would be his successor, he replied “the most worthy ones.” Alexander’s generals spend the next fifty years battling each other for that successor place, and Macedonia never rose again to the heights of Alexander.
One of the critical problems of such an approach is that like the traditional creators, these are businesses that last less than one generation to at most two generations.
S. D Burman and his son R. D Burman(famously known as Pancham da) were legendary music composers in Indian cinema. However, the company did not survive past Pancham da. The same is true for the movie production houses of Satyajit Ray and his son Sandeep Ray.
Today social media influencers gain followers rapidly and each of their content is viewed by millions of viewers across the globe, making their voices and opinions extremely valuable in terms of authority as well as promotion. They also earn invitations to talk shows and consultancies.
However, the creators are dependent on the platforms run by venture capital-scaled internet companies like Youtube, Twitter, and Instagram, and this dependency makes them vulnerable to the actions and policies of the corporations. Of every money the creators make, almost 30% is taken away by the platforms in direct and indirect ways making the creators just unemployed earning sources for the corporations.
Creator’s economy is shortlived because:
- Its dependence on the corporations, and because they are merely non-salaried employees of the large corporations.
- Most creators serve individual interests or problems. When one serves groups and entities, the growth of the entity fuels the growth of the service company because the service company serves the system, not the entity, and the system evolves. When an individual grows in life, the need changes, and so those who serve them better change as life changes.
- Associates of the individuals are connected to them for only one of the two purposes: a) Riding on a horse’s back to earn livelihood b) Learning enough to become creators themselves. Again the association is not bound by theology and system, and is more of opportunistic in nature.
- As the creator economy is small units of corporation earnings where units themselves are mercenaries associated with the creator, the long-term evolution of the system, and people attached to the systems are the bare minimum.