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One of the biggest problem I see with the creator economy is that most of the highest grossing products on any platform are get rich schemes. Real estate, credi

One of the biggest problem I see with the creator economy is that most of the highest grossing products on any platform are get rich schemes. Real estate, credit repair (like the example quoted on Teachable), drop shipping tutorials etc are heavily marketed and sold as a way to get rich. I don't really like that kind of business being the poster child of the creator economy. I'd much rather it be artists making music or writers like Strachery. Look carefully, you'll see that the secret to making it and getting rich in the creator economy is to sell the secret to getting rich and making it in the creator economy, which is itself the secret to getting rich and making it in the creator economy. It's all very ironic.

1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
"Look carefully, ..." Been that way for many years. It's almost like recursion. The web has a dominant bias for itself. The users who engage with it the most promote themselves and their own views. It is not a true representation of all people because not all people engage with it on the same level or to the same degree. This makes it all the more confusing that "9%" of the population can have such influence on the other 91. https://nypost.com/2021/10/15/airplane-creator-slams-joy-killing-threat-twitter-9-percent/ https://nypost.com/2021/10/15/airplane-creator-slams-joy-kil...
mromanuk 5y ago
Specially pervasive is "learn to grow your audience on Twitter like I did" teaching people how to grow an audience on Twitter
- Existenceblinks 5y ago
  That, posting MRR progress 3 times a day is the new showing super cars to bait people into the game.
paulryanrogers 5y ago
Selling tools during a gold rush is always a sound strategy. Though there are some streamers getting rich through performance and sponsorships. At least if the Twitch leaks are to be believed. Some YouTubers are also earning upper middle-class incomes producing niche content. So I don't think it's all get rich schemes. Sadly that does still appear to be the easiest road.
Mikeb85 5y ago
While that's what's visible, I know people who have started real, non-scammy businesses in the 'creator economy'. Some of the highest profile e-shops are also real companies. Scams come and go, some people get middle-class rich, but the companies actually getting big are real, legit businesses. And there are lots of small-scale success stories in plenty of 'maker' industries.
edwinwee 5y ago
Author of the linked blog post here. Understand the skepticism. But get rich schemes, credit repair, and real estate are all prohibited from using Stripe—they're against our terms of service (https://stripe.com/restricted-businesses#unfair-predatory-or-deceptive-practices https://stripe.com/restricted-businesses#unfair-predatory-or...). Many of these businesses predictably see chargebacks from customers since their services don't pan out. We (and the credit card networks) carefully monitor for this activity and move these businesses off Stripe, and they're excluded from the data in blog post. We've also only analyzed legitimate businesses, and the Teachable example is one of them. Get rich schemes have always had the tools to sell and market their stuff—snake oil and Nigerian princes have been around since the beginning of the internet. What's different about the past year (and what the big jump can be attributed to) is that creators have the tools now—from streaming services to newsletter platforms. More individuals are equipped to pursure their passions—selling their books, art, or podcasts—motivated by the largest audience that's ever been online, due to 2020's accelerated shift. As the post says, the category that was fastest growing over the past year was community—connecting real people with each other, surrounding the output of these creators.
- sudhirj 5y ago
  While I’m sure there’s definitely a team handling the obvious cases, there are a lot of people who sell these schemes packaged as “training” or advice of some sort. And the number of titles in the self-help category is infinite, so it simply isn’t going to be possible to stop them. If you take a look at some of the top grossers on Gumroad and Stripe independents (Tai Lopez comes to mind) they’re all selling an multimedia version of a self-help book. Maybe they work, maybe they don’t, but I have a strong distaste for the genre in general and don’t like that most of the success stories are people selling dreams.

1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago

"Look carefully, ..." Been that way for many years. It's almost like recursion. The web has a dominant bias for itself. The users who engage with it the most promote themselves and their own views. It is not a true representation of all people because not all people engage with it on the same level or to the same degree. This makes it all the more confusing that "9%" of the population can have such influence on the other 91. https://nypost.com/2021/10/15/airplane-creator-slams-joy-killing-threat-twitter-9-percent/ https://nypost.com/2021/10/15/airplane-creator-slams-joy-kil...

mromanuk 5y ago

Specially pervasive is "learn to grow your audience on Twitter like I did" teaching people how to grow an audience on Twitter

Existenceblinks 5y ago
That, posting MRR progress 3 times a day is the new showing super cars to bait people into the game.

paulryanrogers 5y ago

Selling tools during a gold rush is always a sound strategy. Though there are some streamers getting rich through performance and sponsorships. At least if the Twitch leaks are to be believed. Some YouTubers are also earning upper middle-class incomes producing niche content. So I don't think it's all get rich schemes. Sadly that does still appear to be the easiest road.

Mikeb85 5y ago

While that's what's visible, I know people who have started real, non-scammy businesses in the 'creator economy'. Some of the highest profile e-shops are also real companies. Scams come and go, some people get middle-class rich, but the companies actually getting big are real, legit businesses. And there are lots of small-scale success stories in plenty of 'maker' industries.

edwinwee 5y ago

Author of the linked blog post here. Understand the skepticism. But get rich schemes, credit repair, and real estate are all prohibited from using Stripe—they're against our terms of service (https://stripe.com/restricted-businesses#unfair-predatory-or-deceptive-practices https://stripe.com/restricted-businesses#unfair-predatory-or...). Many of these businesses predictably see chargebacks from customers since their services don't pan out. We (and the credit card networks) carefully monitor for this activity and move these businesses off Stripe, and they're excluded from the data in blog post. We've also only analyzed legitimate businesses, and the Teachable example is one of them. Get rich schemes have always had the tools to sell and market their stuff—snake oil and Nigerian princes have been around since the beginning of the internet. What's different about the past year (and what the big jump can be attributed to) is that creators have the tools now—from streaming services to newsletter platforms. More individuals are equipped to pursure their passions—selling their books, art, or podcasts—motivated by the largest audience that's ever been online, due to 2020's accelerated shift. As the post says, the category that was fastest growing over the past year was community—connecting real people with each other, surrounding the output of these creators.

sudhirj 5y ago
While I’m sure there’s definitely a team handling the obvious cases, there are a lot of people who sell these schemes packaged as “training” or advice of some sort. And the number of titles in the self-help category is infinite, so it simply isn’t going to be possible to stop them. If you take a look at some of the top grossers on Gumroad and Stripe independents (Tai Lopez comes to mind) they’re all selling an multimedia version of a self-help book. Maybe they work, maybe they don’t, but I have a strong distaste for the genre in general and don’t like that most of the success stories are people selling dreams.