The Era of the Grand Knowledge Industry
In recent years, the market known as the creator economy has met a new renaissance. Centered around YouTube, personal broadcasters, influencers on social media, and in-depth writings delivered through newsletters like Substack... All of these have created massive social and economic waves, driven by personal creativity, knowledge sharing, and fun.
Lately, whenever I visit any website and see Google ads or in-app ads, if they aren't game ads, they are course ads. Of course, it could be because I've been targeted that way, but hearing stories around me, people actually mention that the faces run by course platforms pop up way too largely. Seeing that, I think the courses shown to others are just different, but the situation is pretty much the same.
Goals That Diverge from the Start
Many people start their social media activities to turn their hobbies into professions and their dreams into reality. As cases emerge of YouTubers broadcasting cooking secrets to the world from a small kitchen, or sharing how to brew one's own coffee beans, this entire journey seems to start from pure enjoyment and boundless creativity. However, as everyone knows, over time they are pressured to produce more content and acquire better equipment. Such demands ultimately boil down to the realistic issue of money. And from a certain point, there are cases where one's very purpose turns into money, or where people start solely with an eye on money from the very beginning.
Is the Future Sponsorship?
Sponsorship models—including YouTube channel memberships, OnlyFans, and Patreon—sent a message of hope to many creators through Kevin Kelly's past "1,000 True Fans" theory. The alluring notion that "if you just have true supporters, you can make a living off your content" sounds plausible. After all, if a thousand people who like me give 10,000 KRW a month, that yields a monthly income of 10 million KRW. But in reality, one is lucky if even 5% of followers convert into paying subscribers, often showing a reality quite distant from expectations. Moreover, cases where people make overstepping demands behind such sponsorships are also becoming frequent.
Creators Struggling in an Overflowing Market
The creator market is already saturated. Whether it's YouTube channels, podcasts, or newsletters, their numbers have only grown explosively. Now, creators must engage in fierce competition to find their voice, captivate audiences, and gain fans who decide to make recurring payments. On top of that, the overflow of free content compounds these challenges even further. In fact, many course contents seen lately often involve building a personal course website rather than just relying on course platforms, acquiring personal contact info under the guise of giving out a free PDF book, and then doing course sales outreach via email and personal contact.
People talk about it as if it's a new method, but in fact, this method has long been used extensively by media outlets and consulting firms. It's a method where you give out free reports and free content, and then use the most important thing—or what is genuinely needed—as a touchpoint to convert them into customers. What only a few corporations used to do back then can now be done by anyone—anyone can build a website, a channel, and content—so the fatigue and difficulty brought by this market itself have become extremely high.
Toward a Sustainable Creation Model
Directly asking fans for financial support sometimes damages trust within the fan community. The interaction between creator and fan devolves into a simple transaction, leaving some feeling displeased. Relentless promotion of subscription perks and exclusive content obscures the essence of creation and imposes the burden of having to pour excessive time into social media promotion. Of course, the story would be different if the broadcast was meant for receiving donations from the outset, but I am speaking strictly about creators outside of that realm, those engaged in the knowledge industry.
Building a successful sponsorship model is rare. The vast majority of independent creators seek financial stability by mixing various revenue streams, such as ad revenue, part-time jobs, freelancing, merchandise sales, and institutional funding. This hybrid revenue model disperses risk across multiple income streams, allowing creators to cope more flexibly with market shifts and fluctuations in fan engagement. I have YouTubers, short-form creators, and Instagram influencers with hundreds of thousands of followers around me, yet cases where they earn eye-popping income are not that common. Rather, it even feels like they under-earn relative to how hard they really work.
A Non-Cookie-Cutter Storyteller?
In the end, as creators ponder their own diverse monetization strategies, they ultimately adopt methods of making money by producing their own content or building communities to run challenges and gatherings. What's important in the end is this flood of knowledge. There is just too much of it. In the past, to learn specific knowledge or methods, one had to seek out specialized books, experts, or scholars, but now it has become far too easy.
In the age of AI, it will become even easier. An era will come where viewing generated information is faster than searching to find it. In the end, following up on my thoughts from last time, I cautiously predict that perhaps only personal thoughts, wisdom, counseling, or personalized consulting will survive.
// Personally, whenever I see an ad, I click "do not show again," but seeing it continue to pop up makes me think the relevant platforms and marketers are running MMPs or ad channels really aggressively. It feels like a battle of spear and shield, which I sometimes find fascinating.