[Thread] Meta plans to shut down Super, a Cameo rival that let people pay creators or celebrities to interact with them in a live stream, on February 15, 2023
Hello Superstars, We are sad to say that Super is shutting down … Aisha Malik / TechCrunch : Meta is shutting down its Cameo-like ‘Super’ app in February Tweets: Josh Constine / @joshconstine : Facebook, Snapchat, & TikTok have been cutting down their creator funds and video payouts while abandoning creator features. Facebook Super users have 2 months to download their Cameo-style videos & creators can't host events anymore. https://super.events/home Josh Constine / @joshconstine : Creators should be wary of platform “experiments” on their behalf & temporary cash rewards for trying new features. You never know when the rug will be pulled. That's why the renaissance of creator startups I wrote about here is more important than ever https://constine.substack.com/ ...
Context & Ripple Effects
Super's shutdown lands mid-pattern: earlier in 2022 Meta killed its video speed dating experiment Sparked, and by summer it was ending payments to its 50 US news partners on Facebook's News Tab. Super — a Cameo-style app where fans paid creators and celebrities for live interactions — lasted under two years from launch to the February 15, 2023 cutoff.
The reporting around the shutdown widens the frame beyond Meta: Facebook, Snapchat, and TikTok have all been trimming creator funds and video payouts while abandoning creator features, and Josh Constine's advice to creators is explicit — treat platform "experiments" and temporary cash rewards as unreliable ground to build on.
First-order effects
- Creators on Super lose event hosting immediately and have only two months to download their Cameo-style videos before the platform goes dark on February 15, 2023.
- Cameo keeps its lane clearer: the best-funded potential rival in paid celebrity interactions exits rather than scales.
Second-order effects
- With Facebook, Snapchat, and TikTok simultaneously cutting creator funds and payouts, creators face pressure to route paid fan interactions through dedicated services like Cameo or their own channels instead of native platform features.
- Every experiment shutdown raises the cost of recruiting creators to test new Meta features — the audience for the next "temporary cash reward" pitch has just been reminded how these end.
Third-order effects
- The pattern extends past small experiments: two years after Super, Meta shut down its Meta Spark AR platform, suggesting a durable retrenchment from side bets toward core surfaces — and a creator economy that treats any single-platform feature as disposable infrastructure.
- If platforms keep sunsetting niche monetization features, paid-fan-interaction demand consolidates into standalone specialists, weakening the social networks' claim to be full-stack creator economies.
The trend: Major social platforms are systematically pruning experimental creator-monetization features and concentrating resources on core products, pushing creators toward independent monetization tools they control.