Here comes everyone. Is this the TIME for the creator economy?

6 min readJan 4, 2023

As you know at Your FLOCK we talk about the future of work. And how technology is helping people with remote working and supporting people working from home. Due to the pandemic and other factors, The Great Resignation has been a key trend for the last few years. This is partly as only 15% of people are fully engaged at work. And we talk about how we can help change this a LOT.

And about how technologies like Your FLOCK — can give business owners the feedback they need to hear from their employees. So they feel more supported and become more engaged at work.

But perhaps there is a new way of working. Outside of work. Work that you don’t love. Work that doesn’t give you autonomy, purpose and mastery. This is why we have seen the rise of the side hustle or hobby that pays you money.

So… Maybe the modern world and the world of work is not about a cost of living crisis but a “cost of being” crisis too?

Which is why more and more people are creating.

One thing for sure is that due to technology we are creating more and more. Whether those creations are worth money is a different matter.

For example, with the ever-improving quality of smartphone cameras, the number of pictures taken around the world every day is skyrocketing. In 2023, 54,400 photos will be taken every second, 196 million per hour, 4.7 billion per day, 32.9 billion per week, 143 billion per month, and 1.72 trillion per year.

Now most of this is just data on our phones. It’s just for us and friends. And not sold. Which is how the stat that:

“90% of the world’s data has been created in the last two years.”

Keeps being true. We are making more and more things that are data.

But did you know, according to some studies, the world now has over 200 million people in the creator economy. People that create things like photos, or videos, or digital items (or even physical.) And at the end of 2022, the creator economy market size is estimated at $104.2 billion.

More than double its value since 2019.

Some examples of the creator economy.

OnlyFans:

OnlyFans reported 2.1 million creators may focus on any type of content, from fitness and cooking videos to music lessons, makeup tutorials, and gaming live streams. With the top producers making literally millions of pounds a year. The top producer being Blac Chyna. Who joined the platform in 2020.

“The 33-year-old businesswoman and reality TV star makes an eye-watering $20 million (£17.7 million) per month. Chyna charges a monthly fee of $19.99 (£17.75) for her content.”

Twitch:

Twitch streams on over 95,000 live channels. In 2022, an average of 2.67 million concurrent viewers watched. As of January 2023, the most-followed channel belongs to Ninja. Tyler Blevins, aka “Ninja,” is an American internet personality and gamer who has a net worth of $40 million. Most popular for playing the game “Fortnite,” Blevins has amassed more than 24 million subscribers and 2.5 billion views on YouTube and 17 million followers on Twitch. At $5 a month per subscription, he regularly earns between $500,000 and $1 million per month playing video games.

YouTube:

YouTube has over 2.6 billion users worldwide.As of March 2022, there are around 32,300 YouTube channels having over 1 million subscribers. And around 106,000 channels have 100,000 subscribers. Which is still enough to make a nice amount of money. An average of 694,000 hours of video are streamed by YouTuber users each and every minute.

This is even higher than Netflix, whose users stream 452,000 hours per minute. We here at Your FLOCK have a couple of channels for our talks and events on the future of work and company culture and employee engagement.

Podcasts:

As of January 2023, there are over 5 million podcasts with over 70 million episodes between them. The United States has the most podcast listeners in the world. And there are 464.7 million podcast listeners globally. It is predicted that there will be around 504.9 million podcast listeners worldwide by the end of 2024. We are thinking about launching a podcast here at Your FLOCK too. Perhaps or we will just continue to be guests on other people’s like….

Substack:

Substack launched in 2017 as a tool for starting paid email newsletters. Within a year, the company had turned a mission to help writers reach audiences that value them into a platform with 25,000 paying subscribers.

Now, the company boasts a dedicated paying subscriber base of over 500,000 members and millions of readers. The top 10 authors on Substack collectively make over $20 million per year. Your FLOCK has a newsletter (including this one) — but not one that people pay for!

This is a great free newsletter on Substack from Bruce Diasley.

Etsy:

Did you also know that there are 7.5 million active sellers on Etsy. Remember, creators who make and sell physical goods online are also a part of the creator economy.

So should you become a creator?

In some respects you already are a creator. But could you become part of the creator economy? Maybe but not just for the money. Not straight away. As the reality is that it is much easier to make money working with and for someone else. Being employed whether it be remotely in an office is still one of the best ways to make money. As the content creator timeline for creators (according to (The Tilt) can look like this.

Most start earning money at the six and a half month mark.
At 17 months, they start earning enough to support themselves.
And at 25 months, many are able to hire their first employee or freelancer.

Which is surprising, as ConvertKit’s survey of over 2,700 content creators found that almost half of their users fell into the “full-time” category. 42.7% are part-timers while just 10.6% consider themselves “hobbyists.”

As for many people “creating” isn’t about the money. It’s about art. But the upside is that if you wanted to make a business from it. It doesn’t cost as much to become a creator than it used to. Especially if you are creating a media product.

As Denhoff from Hubspot — a tech company supporting the creator economy more and more — says:

“The barriers to creating a media product have dropped significantly,”

Denhoff say’s:

“When we talk about creators, obviously there are folks that can produce something right from their phone and post it on social media — but we’re also talking to independent writers, podcasters, and YouTubers who are building digital media products.”

“It’s much easier for them to set up a home studio with lighting, audio, and great camera quality — and the tools and cost of those tools have gone down in the last couple of years. So it’s easier than ever for folks to create these independent media products and get up and running.”

Denhoff also says creators who may typically work for larger companies can now branch out and carve their niche in the creator economy.

“So, they were writers for The Atlantic or writers for Digiday,” Denhoff said. “They had built up a profile as an expert … at that media company, and because they were already so good at their job, they had an existing audience — and now they’ve branched off to create their own independent media products and generate revenue as a solo entrepreneur.”

An example of this phenomenon, according to Denhoff, would be The Atlantic writer Derrick Thompson who went on to host his podcast, Plain English.

So perhaps the best thing really is the side hustle. To work for someone and to then build up your portfolio of work. And the following. But in your spare time whilst working for someone else. So do that first.

In the end, the future of work is going to be hybrid …

And maybe it will be hybrid in more ways than one.

Worth thinking about. Happy New Year.

What type of side hustle would you like to start in 2023?

Do comment below.

If you dare.