Creators are monetizing through hyper-specific revenue streams like NewNew, which lets fans pay to vote to control a creator's day-to-day decisions
Digital stars are coming up with new ways to make money. Yet fans still hold the power. — A rash of new start-ups are making it easier …
New York TimesTaylor Lorenz
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the third act of a decade-long shift in how digital stars get paid. In 2015, YouTube was paying top creators directly to keep them from defecting to Facebook (YouTube offers money and help to top creators); by 2019, venture capital had arrived for a services layer around influencers, with startups like Cameo and Karat treating creators as an established market.
Creators on NewNew gain a revenue stream priced by engagement rather than by content output — each decision becomes a paid event, and the most engaged superfans effectively co-manage the creator's calendar and choices.
Second-order effects
Cameo, Substack, and the VC-backed creator-services cohort now compete against platforms where the fan buys control rather than access, pushing rivals toward more interactive, participatory formats to defend pricing power over passive purchases.
Third-order effects
If pay-to-influence holds as a category, the creator economy's unit of sale shifts from content to agency — and, given the influence over audiences documented around VidCon (influencers' command of social media foreshadowing power in politics and elsewhere), fan-purchased sway over public figures becomes a dynamic regulators and platforms eventually have to confront.
The trend: Creator monetization is moving up the stack from ad-funded reach (platform payouts) to sold products (Cameo, Substack) to sold influence itself, with fans paying per-decision to steer what creators do.
NEWS: I wrote about all the crazy and inventive ways creators are monetizing, including letting fans pay $$ decide what they wear, who they hang out with, where they go, and what they do https://www.nytimes.com/...
I think we're only scratching the surface of how the attention economy is impacting the lives of kids https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Contrary to what morons will say, Taylor got her great job because she can see what others don't (or won't) in our new digital culture and she reports on it with verve. The Times is lucky to have her work in its report. https://twitter.com/...
This reminds me of the day I found out that there's an entire internet sub-culture that involves people (mostly men) paying other people (mostly women) to stream videos of themselves eating https://www.nytimes.com/...
i believe that influencers/creators are living in the near future that we're all gonna live in as the attention economy matures. and i think what that means is more and more and more and more precarity for everyone. https://twitter.com/...
Interesting dive into the creator economy. Thank you @TaylorLorenz. The creator economy is changing so fast and in ways that I think are ultimately productive. https://twitter.com/...
“Creators are burning out, but their fans want more and more...By monetizing each aspect of their life, they can extract value from everyday interactions.” @TaylorLorenz on digital stars and their powerful fans: https://www.nytimes.com/...
“We're building an economy of attention where you purchase moments in other people's lives, and we take it a step further by allowing and enabling people to control those moments.” https://www.nytimes.com/...
I wrote about NewNew, Stir, PearPop, Rally, NFTs, @elijahdaniel's Clout Market, and how creator monetization is being upended in wild and creative ways https://www.nytimes.com/...