Jennifer Acree and Nick Moran of Talking Points spoke with business journalist Kaya Yurieff and Jasmine Enberg, who started Scalable to the business of the creator economy.
Acree and Moran write, “For someone who’s spent years studying the space, Yurieff keeps coming back to one thing that still isn’t getting enough airtime—how challenging it is to actually build a creator business. ‘We don’t talk enough about the burnout, pressure and challenges of operating a creator business,’ she says. ‘So much of what we see online looks glamorous and effortless, but so much work has to happen behind the scenes to bring even a 15-second video to life.’
“Enberg points to platform dependence as part of the same pressure. ‘Almost all social media creators are still at the behest of platforms and their algorithms when it comes to distributing their content,’ she says. ‘Many creators have lessened their reliance on social platforms by diversifying into other channels, including newsletters, podcasts, online communities, digital or physical products and live events… but the big checks are still largely coming from brand deals and they still need to make content for social media in order to reach and grow their audiences.’
“Yurieff sees a reckoning arriving for podcasting in particular, as the format’s pivot to video has made an already crowded space significantly harder to survive. ‘The list of podcasters who have thrown in the towel is growing, and we expect this to hit women and minorities especially hard.’ The reasoning is layered and complex: video opens hosts up to appearance-based scrutiny and online harassment that audio didn’t, while simultaneously demanding more time, money, and production overhead. ‘The truth is that the shelf-life of creator businesses can be quite short and there aren’t clear ways to exit.'”
Read more here.
