The Dynamic that Built $100 Billion Economy Now Works Against You
Most people are doing the right things in the wrong phase. If your writing, YouTube channel, or Substack isn’t growing this is why
It’s 2020 and the world goes berserk.
Covid forces people inside.
Screen time skyrockets and silicon valley takes action.
This was the moment that VC capital started to flood into the system.
Up until this point the internet was still a relatively loosely defined space.
The big platforms had emerged but it was still largely individuals publishing online, building audiences and experimenting with formats.
As covid shifted more of life online this became the next massive opportunity for investors. In many ways silicon valley saw this as the next wave of tech start ups.
The numbers tell part of the story.
Patreon raises $155 million in 2020, followed by another major round the year after.
Substack raises around $65 million in 2021.
Cameo crossed $100 million in transactions.
Clubhouse reached a valuation of roughly $4 billion at its peak, to name but a few.
Not only that but there were massive stories dominating the headlines like Spotify signing a deal with Joe Rogan reportedly worth over $100 million. It Later doubled down with creators like Emma Chamberlain.
Even on a smaller scale, people like Ali Abdaal and Dan Koe were perfectly positioned to take advantage of the covid surge and started getting algorithmically recommended on all platforms.
The groundwork was set. Creators were no longer just users of platforms, they became the assets. They were used to build hype and aspiration in an attempt to build not only the platforms but the industry as a whole.
And so you, as did I, bought into the dream that the creator economy promised. Freedom, autonomy and a life on your own terms. You probably thought this sounds like something I could do. Just write or talk about my interests, create a small digital product and get paid for it. That sounds achievable.
The reality is that there has been world class story telling around this space for several years now and it has built up an unrealistic ideal that has very little to do with reality.
The covid boom is over, but the advice from that era still lives on. By the end of this essay you will understand how the system dynamics have changed. Why it is not enough to just be consistent, and what is required if you want to make writing a sustainable long term option.
I’m curious. How long have you been operating in the creator economy? Do you want to make a living or is this your hobby?
I am full time employed. Part time YouTube since 2022 and I’ve been writing on Substack for almost 2 years. I have launched products that made 1000’s of dollars, and some that made zero.
This article is not a 5 step formula to 10K a month in 30 days. If you’re looking for quick wins, shortcuts, or a way to force growth, this won’t help you.
This is written for people who are thinking beyond that. Those who are trying to build something that lasts, even if it grows slower.
To understand why this is happening, I find it helpful to conceptualise the system in two phases.
The expansion phase, where everything was growing and almost any form of consistent output could find an audience.
And the consolidation phase, where attention is limited, distribution is controlled, and the same behaviours start producing the opposite outcome.
Most advice you see today was built in the first phase. You are probably operating in the second.
The influx of capital in 2020 and 2021 didn’t just accelerate growth.
It locked the story in. What had been a loose collection of people doing very different things online was suddenly packaged into something clean, comparable and, most importantly, investable.
I’ve already written about how much attention is placed on packaging and positioning Here
The Language of the Creator Economy
This might sound like hair-splitting but language is extremely important. Bloggers, YouTubers, Podcasters, Writers — all of these terms are tied to a format or medium and a specific way of working. But Around 2019 terms like the “passion economy” and “creator economy” started to gain traction.
They were attempts to describe a shift that was already underway. What was missing was a unifying frame and around 2020 is when that frame locked in.
As capital moved decisively into the space, platforms began to align. Media adopted the terminology. Investors repeated it, and the word “creator” became the default label for a category that was large enough, and more importantly, valuable enough to formalise.
YouTube didn’t erase the term “YouTuber” but replaced it at an institutional level. Internal channels like “Creator Insider”, “creator events” and tools for creators signalled a broader move toward a single, more flexible identity of the “creator”, across formats, audiences, and, crucially, monetisation.
TikTok launched it’s Creator Fund, not a Tiktok fund. Spotify positioned itself as “Spotify for Creators,” not podcasters.
Even Substack, the platform we still think of as niche, quiet and wholesome began to start framing writers as creators, in an attempt to attract bigger names to the platform.
Different forms of work, different mediums, different outputs all folded into a single term.
So why does that matter?
It might sound like a necessary simplification of a complex and messy situation. Maybe it is, but it’s also, to a larger extent, a standardisation.
Once everything is standardised, it can be compared. Once it can be compared, it can be ranked. And once it can be ranked, it can be optimised.
That shift is what made the creator economy scalable. But it is also what makes us replaceable.
Once your work is reduced to something that can be compared, ranked, and optimised, it no longer needs to be specifically yours.
It just needs to perform. That’s when the system stops being about what you make and starts being about how it performs.
In retrospect this does not appear to have been accidental.
This is where the dynamics fundamentally changed. Because once everything sits under the same label, the individual “creator” stops being the asset, and is replaced with the format.
You’re a creator inside a system that decides what gets seen and what doesn’t. People stop watching and following individual creators. They consume the feed. The platform becomes the asset. Not the individual person making the “content”.
And if the platform is the asset, then the individual becomes interchangeable.
This is the point that most of us missed. On most platforms you are not building something people come to. You are supplying something a system distributes. And once you understand that, a lot of the frustration starts to make sense.
By 2023, the hype around the creator economy began to cool. The Funding slowed down. Some platforms started to struggle and the initial narrative lost momentum.
According to this report the number of independent creators has stopped growing and actually started to decline. The expansion phase has ended. The system is no longer pulling people in at the same rate.
Countless studies show that the majority (75% - 80%) of creators earn less than 50K a year and only the top 5% earn over 100K per year.
Inequality is just as pronounced online as it is in the real world. The top 5% of creators continue to amass wealth and influence while the masses struggle to gain any sort of meaningful traction at all.
Funding peaked earlier and is now more selective. Investors are shifting to fewer, bigger bets and they are going with proven winners. The experimentation phase is over and the system is consolidating.
This is where the break happened. The behaviours that worked during expansion e.g consistency, volume and optimisation do not stop working. They invert. They produce more content, more competition, and less differentiation. Which is why so many people are working harder than ever and getting nowhere.
People are more resistant than they used to be. There is less patience for anything that feels overly engineered for attention and more awareness of how much of what they’re seeing is designed to perform rather than just say something of worth.
So now that you’re questioning everything you might be feeling like this is a lost cause.
Building an audience online is hard. If you are feeling stuck, it is probably not a motivation problem or a discipline problem. It is a phase problem. You are applying expansion-phase behaviours inside a consolidation-phase system.
So what should you do next?
If you are someone who just wants to write and forget about the rest. You should stop reading here.
For those who are here to build something and actually want their work to get seen, this is how I’m thinking about this now.
I am not stepping outside the system. That’s not realistic. But I am trying to use it without letting it shape the work itself.
There is a reason people are drifting away from the larger platforms. I shared the numbers above but you can also just feel it, even without the data.
The intense competition, the generic phrases and hacks and the sense that everything is being shaped for the same outcome. People are tired of it. That’s why you’re seeing movement toward smaller, newer platforms such as Substack, Ghost, Bluesky, Mastodon and the rest.
This is not because they are fundamentally different, but because they still feel open and less optimised, for now.
That last part matters. Substack is a good bet at this stage, but it is a temporary window, not a permanent advantage. The same dynamics that shaped every other platform are starting to show up here as well. If you treat it as a long-term guarantee, you will make the same mistake again.
So the question becomes how to use this phase properly while it still exists?
Shift 1. Clarity.
What are you actually trying to build and who it is for? Because in a system where attention is fragmented and distribution is controlled, vague positioning disappears almost immediately.
If someone reads three pieces and cannot explain what you stand for, the work is not holding. And if it’s not holding, nothing compounds. Which means you are not building anything. You are just producing.
If you want a simple way to approach this, use the tools that are now available to you.
Take a piece of your writing and run it through an A.I model.
Use this Prompt:
Read the following piece of writing carefully.
I don’t want feedback on style, grammar, or how to improve it.
I want you to analyse the thinking behind it.
Based on this text, answer the following:
1. What is this person actually trying to become known for? Be specific.
2. What kind of reader would consistently return to this work? Describe them in detail.
3. What is unclear, inconsistent, or underdeveloped in this direction?
4. If this person continued writing like this for the next 6 months, what would they realistically build?
5. What is missing that would make this work more distinct and recognisable?
Do not be polite. Do not generalise.
Point out where the thinking lacks clarity or direction.
Developing a clear voice and unique positioning is one of the few ways to stand out. Consider becoming a founding member and I will personally audit your substack. We’ll look at your positioning, tone of voice, consistency of messaging and overall strategy. Consider upgrading here:
Shift 2. Output.
Most of what you produce will not move anything.
That is just the reality of it.
I have written over sixty long-form pieces. The majority have brought in one or two subscribers, if that. Less than 6 have done the opposite. They have reached new people, and pulled them into the rest of the work. That distribution is not even and it never was. It has been the same for me on Youtube.
Not every piece will hit. Not every post will lead to growth. Some things are written to grow. Others are written to develop ideas, to test positions, to push something further.
The problem is, you don’t know in advance which posts will be the ones that do the most work for you. This is why it is important to lead with curiosity and to keep experimenting. Trying to replicate one piece that might have gone viral last month is where you start to dilute your voice and the quality of your work.
Shift 3. Titles & Positioning
I wish this wasn’t the case, but it is.
You can write something truly groundbreaking but if the title doesn’t invite people in, it won’t be read. The title frames everything and will determine who you end up attracting. I thought this would be less important with Email than it is, for example with Youtube Thumbnails. I was wrong.
Try not to think of this as tricking people into clicking. It’s really about making your thinking legible. If someone cannot understand what you are doing from the outside, they will never get close enough to engage with the work itself.
I now spend a lot of time on titles. I regularly rewrite them, sometimes 20 -30 times before I even start the article.
I started this piece with “I don’t want to be a creator anymore.” I think it is a great title and would gain traction fast but it also felt reactive. I decided I don’t want to attract the kind of person who that would resonate with. Then I cycled through countless more accurate, but less compelling titles until I finally landed on the one that you clicked on.
That tension never goes away. How to frame what you are doing is extremely important. Not to manipulate, but to make it legible to someone who is third stressed and thinking about something else. The title is not decoration. It is the entry point. If you get that wrong, the rest of the work doesn’t matter.
Shift 4. Human Networks
Writing alone, however good it is, is not enough to grow anymore. If you already have solid writing and are clear on who you are and what your goals are then you will be thinking about growth.
In this consolidation phase a little more effort and creativity is required. The writers who grow the fastest are great communicators and collaborators. During the rapid growth stage relying on the algorithm to shoot you to the moon may have been enough. Today getting in front of other audiences requires reaching out to other writers. Collaboration will bring more growth than pumping out content.
If things are not working spend some time in shift 1. The value is not in the answers themselves. It’s in what they force you to confront.
Most people think they lack reach but reach only comes when you have some kind of clarity on who you are and who you are trying to attract.
This is also not something you just do once. I do this myself on a regular basis. I too am still figuring this out. I often feel the urge to mix things up or run some kind of random experiment and doing these kind of exercises helps to keep me centred and grounded. Run your writing through the prompt I provided and let me know if it helped.
Most people are writing without a stable direction, which means every piece resets the process. Nothing connects, nothing accumulates, and nothing becomes recognisable over time.
This exercise makes that visible.
Thanks for reading,
Take care,
Ben