There's been a huge trend lately from almost every content related platform to give away grants to creators that post and are active on their platform (see every platform that gives grants to their creators here). The goal of today's platforms with these grants is to contribute to build a "Creator Economy middle-class", but while the goal is great, I don't think this is how creators would benefit the most...
Why? Well this reminds me of a socialist concept that I personally don't like, because in the end, it hurts the whole economy, and the individuals are the most damaged.
Creator grants are basically stimulus checks. Just like the ones given away by governments. 💵💩
Although these two differ in that one of them is given based on activity and performance while the other one is just given for the sake of being a person, they have one thing in common: they make individuals hugely rely on these big institutions, instead of the later ones giving individuals (better) opportunities to make money by themselves.
Big institutions – whether it's the government or a company like Facebook – actually seem generous when they give out money to individuals, but in the long term this doesn't work.
These checks, have a lot of bad consequences in a country's economy – which I personally yet don't know if they apply to the Creator Economy because they aren'´t exactly the same –, but the main issue is that they are not that benefitial for creators. They give big institutions more power and control over their users –in this case–, and it´s unpredictable, unscalable and totally dependant income for creators. This is totally the opposite of what creators want, and could probably be considered the best representation of creator washing a company can take.
Grants are usually given away by companies that want to retain their users, or want to test a new feature/product, and in order to reach new users, they use creators so that they bring their "name" and audience with them. While these may seem interesting for creators, they are only a hook, and the "help" won't last much.
Creators are people that create content because in the end, they don't want to be dependant on someone bigger. We all know that in order to do so, they need enough money to survive – and there are a lot of companies coming up with new ways for them to increase their income – but these grants are just not good enough, because they won't allow them to have a reliable/steady source of income.
Building a creator middle-class means having more creators be able to generate enough income to live out of creating content by themselves, not financed by an institution. This means that companies should build products that give creators the power (or opportunity) to make (more) money by themselves, if they really care about them. So...
What do creators actually need, and what should companies build in order to create a "middle-class"?
Well I wrote a short thread about it, but basically they need a way to charge a "good" amount of money –recurringly–, where their following count isn't involved and that people would pay for regardless of who they are.
Creators being able to monetize 100 super fans is probably the best way to build a reliable recurring income, that allows them to feel safer and have a plan. Below you can see an idea I came up with 👇🏼
I will probably write more about this last idea and the current ways creators have to monetize their audience in the following week(s) so stay tuned 🤘🏼 Subscribe below if you don't want to miss it!!