Creator Economy. What?
and the fight for self sovereignty..
Welcome friends! đââïž
Thank you for signing up for this newsletter. Based on the feedback I received from some of you, it seems like Iâm not completely terrible at this so feeling relievedđ. I hope you enjoy this issue and the ones going forward. Time to dig in!
Before that, letâs go back to 480 BC to a place named Thermopylae. A short story:-
Xerxes, the King of the Persian Empire, decided to conquer the divided Greece and avenge the loss his father, Darius, faced a decade ago. Their ambitions were first met by the Spartans, a rare breed of humans living in the city of Sparta in Greece. A troop of mere 300 but the finest warriors marched to war and held an army of close to a million for 3 complete days until they all died alongside their King Leonidas. The message spread across Greece and Themistocles of Athens took charge and united all of Greece to fight and eventually defeat the Persians at Salamis.
Could all the bloodshed be avoided? Yes. Prior to the war, Xerxes sent a messenger to Sparta and asked for their submission - to give up their independence and join the Persian army. Needless to say, Leonidas denied the proposal and killed the messenger. They and entire Greece chose freedom and independence over tyranny and slavery even if that meant shedding the blood of their loved ones.
As they say: âFreedom is never freeâ
Why does freedom matter?
India produces 1 million engineers each year of which only a handful get a chance to choose if they really want to study it. 2 major reasons for the catastrophe-
Parents believe it is the only viable educational path to glory
Other creative career paths like writing, art, music, etc do not pay sufficiently
*crypto enters chat*
If youâre a creator or know of one, youâll know that most of them do not make money for the sole reason they do not own their content but rent it out on platforms like Spotify, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc. What they receive is a commission for their work when the majority of value goes to the platform. At some point, you also risk getting de-platformed since you do not own the platform itself. This spells doomsday for creators who invested their time and energy building their brand/business on such platforms. The most epic example is that of Donald Trump. He was the sitting President of the United States when social media companies decided to ban him altogether. So itâs not hard to imagine what they could do to any other creator.
Crypto or Web3 (rebranded phrase) solves this in 3 ways-
De-centralized platforms like Ethereum are the infrastructure on top of which platforms for music sharing, video streaming, etc would be built. De-platforming will soon be a thing of the past.
The first-ever viable option for creators to âownâ their content and get paid for it directly from fans and viewers. Hereâs an example from 3LAU who became a millionaire by selling NFTs. There are many more stories like this around the world.
Adults and kids alike spend a lot of their time learning and playing. Web3 introduced the âLearn-to-Earnâ and âPlay-to-Earnâ models on a wide scale.
Early trends in the âPlay-to-Earnâ sphere enabled people in the Philippines to quit their job and play games since that earned them more than their desk job. India is bound to see a strong uptick in gaming this year đ. *Check gaming coins if interested*. NFA.
Rabbithole and Layer3 have set âLearn-to-Earnâ on fire. You complete tasks to gain experience in the crypto world and earn tokens in return for your work. These also serve as your on-chain credentials aka web3-resume.
On a societal level, this opens up tremendous opportunities for existing creators and our future ones. It seems to be one of the most prominent ways to get more kids to pursue artistic careers with a reward system that sounds good enough to convince their parents and help them earn a living. I am optimistic this will improve professional diversity in our society.
Governments around the world are lashing out at crypto (most recently Russia) for a multitude of reasons, the prominent of which seems to be ceding control to individuals. So we need an army of Spartans (you) to advocate for individual sovereignty and not yield to repressive policies. The 1st step in doing so is to talk about it and get the word out. The rest will follow soon. Iâm gonna end with this pragmatic quote:
âBe the change you wish to see in the worldâ
- Mahatma Gandhi
P.S: Weâre moving away from institutions to individuals. Governments will become companies and we wonât be citizens but customers. In the next issue, weâll cover the social, economic, and political changes occurring in the Information age and how we can adapt to stay ahead of the curve.
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