Digiday’s Post

Do we have free will? What is the nature of reality? How much is a subscriber/follower worth? These are the classic age-old questions. 😂 Eric Wei and Will Kim might've recently discovered the answer to the third. Eric and Will are the co-founders of Karat Financial. It's a fintech startup with over $96 million in funding over its latest two rounds that aims to be at the center of creators and their money. They do a couple things in order to bring that aim into focus: 💰 Credit Cards - Karat gives creators hard metal credit cards with the creators' logos etched onto the front. They're 1) very cool, 2) offer some solid rewards, but most obviously and importantly 3) give creators - a cohort that has had difficulty with traditional financial institutions - a means by which to make purchases for their businesses on credit. 💰💰 Data - Karat links up with creators' bank accounts to help them monitor debits and keep track of credits from platforms, product sales, brand deals, and more. This makes internal accounting way easier and also helps organize a creators' revenue for annual tax planning purposes. Karat essentially has a ton of information around how much money creators make, from what revenue streams, and how often they make it. And maybe they have more of this wholistic creator revenue data than any other company in the world? Now they've decided to put it to some anonymized practical use in Karat Insights. The new product tells creators how much revenue they generate - in total and broken down source - compared to other creators in their cohort. It's an empowering piece of data that gives creators valuable benchmarking info. It also answers the question of how much a subscriber/follower is worth. Here's how much revenue is generated on average by a creator with 1 million subscribers/followers on each platform according to Karat Insights: 🤑 YouTube: $90K Platform Earnings / $314K Overall 🤑 Twitch: $80K Platform Earnings / $542K Overall 🤑 Instagram: $20K Platform Earnings / $287K Overall 🤑 TikTok: $473 Platform Earnings / $157K Overall A lot of more insights here, but that's for another post. 😁

The latest Culture and Trends Report from YouTube shows that more than half of Gen Z self-identifies as #contentcreators. This is a big deal because it highlights that #GenZ is the driving force behind the creator economy. And it’s something to keep in mind when you're working closely with creators. In this case, you're often dealing with people who might not know much about #finance. So it's important to offer simple, easy-to-understand solutions. Creators frequently encounter challenges like refunds, chargebacks, and other financial complications, and they may not always know how to handle these situations. At destream, we've learned that it's important to do more than just provide tools. We also act as intermediaries between creators and their audiences. This helps make sure that both sides get the support they need. https://lnkd.in/dp3PsPyX

What’s happening with Substack right now is why creators need to understand the business models and incentives (largely driven by the amount of VC) of their platforms. Substack could never exist purely as a revshare platform offering free tools for a % of subscription sales. Substack is currently pushing towards a recommendation and distribution network focused on followers, which writers are saying is causing their paid subs to drop in favor of these social media-like “benefits.” Frame this another way: you can “subscribe” to their newsletter/short post outpost (let’s call that a text “channel”) and they have an algorithm that will suggest similar content in order for you to grow your “subscribers” (followers). It’s YouTube. 90m raised by Substack made this inevitable. They were always destined to try and be YouTube for Text. Hence free followers and a recommendation algorithm are their prime objective now. Not paid subs. Listen, it’s always easy to spot: - tons of capital raised means they need hypergrowth and massive returns - offering access to tech for free means they aren’t a SaaS company, but an audience company - hypergrowth audience companies can monetize several ways, but the prime model is always the same. Substack is an advertising network. Use it for distribution of your writing if you want, but don’t make it your business’s home base. I wouldn’t trust that any more than I’d trust YouTube as my business’s home base. (Or LinkedIn or Spotify or Instagram or…) If you don’t pay for a platform’s product, then you’re part of the product. If you get the tech for free, something else has to lead to massive revenue growth they need to pay back investors or merely justify the next round and ensure it isn’t a down road. A revshare won’t be the solution. Not at that valuation. This movie keeps repeating and people keep getting surprised. But it’s the same script with different actors every time.

In this week's episode of "Earned vs. Owned vs. Paid #Media," we have a familiar story... The economics of media #tech are repeatable at this point and Jay's overview is as clear as his advice is valid for creators, #marketers, #eCom pros and beyond.

ICYMI: YouTube Creators Update: Deep Dive into the Latest Features: This week's YouTube Creators Update brings exciting news for creators seeking improved workflows, engagement opportunities, and monetization tools. Let's explore each update in detail. #digitalmarketing #marketing

I just read that #YouTube's ads are growing fast. In the second quarter of 2024, they made $8.66 billion, up 13% from last year. This shows there are great opportunities for #contentcreators. It was hard to imagine someone earning millions on YouTube just 7-8 years ago. Now it's a reality. The creator economy is a great place for new #fintech solutions to grow. This industry is developing fast, so it's important to create tools that help creators manage their money. And at destream, we're excited to be a part of this evolution. https://lnkd.in/dgk5fF5g

#In the #mid-2000s, a host of #emails coruscated between the #employees of #PayPal, generating an idea whose #reverberations would change the web forever. Jawed Karim, having grown frustrated with how difficult it was to post a #video #online, where anyone could easily #upload, share, and view videos, struck a chord in Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, and #YouTube was born. #Revolutionary in its #simplicity, Karim's email suggested a platform that could #democratize #video_sharing; basically, anyone anywhere with an internet connection could now share and view videos. That fulfilled a critical chasm that existed with #Internet content #consumption, particularly in the aftermath of events like the Janet Jackson Super Bowl incident, demanding a new type of easily #accessible video content. It started in a small #office in a #garage, plagued by the common startup barriers such as getting #money and luring #users; however, its simplicity of use and being in the right place at the right time made it help create a #community of users that was #fast-#growing. That December, more than 8 #million videos #streamed daily on YouTube, explaining its #incredible rise to the top rank of #digital #media players. YouTube was nothing #short of #transformational. It was the #largest #growing site in the world and some thousand videos being uploaded on a #daily basis within one year from #launching. This growth obviously didn't go unnoticed, and the likes of #Google saw enough potential to buy #YouTube for $1.65 billion in #stock in 2006. The deal #signaled that YouTube had indeed become a #dominant #player in online media and that it could shape the #contours of how people will be consuming digital content in the coming days. Beyond the mere #commercial success, YouTube has managed to stand out in making a deep-seated cultural impact. It has #democratized content creation—it has literally #empowered people from around the world to make their voices, creativity, perspectives, and stories be told. YouTube became the outlet for entertainment, learning, and social integration, harboring communities that are inspirations of the trends within media and pop culture around the world. Jawed Karim's first email on YouTube is indicative of the power that even one idea holds. From its humblest roots to a force that swept through the #world, #innovation #incarnate, YouTube is the vehicle that represents just what having accessible technology can do. Its history turns out to be a big reminder for everyone living in our digital age about the myriad possibilities accrued from visionary thinking and the possibility to meet existing, unmet needs in the digital landscape. Put another way, the YouTube success story, its journey from concept to a cultural phenomenon, highlights the lasting impacts of entrepreneurial spirit and the ability for technological innovation. It remains a beacon of what can be achieved with a visionary idea, the right timing, and execution in the digital age.

Check out what Steven has to say!

FYI: YouTube Creators Update: Deep Dive into the Latest Features: This week's YouTube Creators Update brings exciting news for creators seeking improved workflows, engagement opportunities, and monetization tools. Let's explore each update in detail. #digitalmarketing #marketing

What we are seeing is a dramatic shift from the standard media empire models to ones that operate more like city states. Smaller more localized audiences that directly contribute to the content they enjoy. Its hard to argue that technology has made it easier than ever for creative IP to connect directly with its audience, yet many creative media brands aren't well versed in how to fully optimize these channels sustainably.