The Creator Economy: Who's really making a living?

Welcome to Monday Mornings! A publication about the new world of work beyond the 9-5 — exploring the rise of mass entrepreneurialism. Through sharp analysis and interviews with the builders, thinkers, and leaders driving this shift, Monday Mornings unpacks what a post 9-5 world means for individuals, businesses, and society.

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Happy Monday, folks!

Today, a look into the evolution of the Creator Economy and how creators —aka its workers — are making their living online today.

This March briefing includes:

• The financial realities (missed expectations) of funding creators

• A future of work critic is urging creators to stop doing ‘self-promotion’

• The journalist who thinks influencer’s days are numbered

At its core, we’re asking: Is the Creator Economy set up for its workers?

The internet promised a new kind of entrepreneurship: all you needed was a smartphone and a WiFi connection. With the advent of creator marketplaces, funding, and revenue-sharing models, what felt like overnight, a ‘creator’ became a viable career path. For many, this wasn’t just about making videos or building an audience, but escaping the 9-5 altogether.

In the wake of the pandemic, layoffs and furloughs pushed more workers online. But if creators were meant to feel like empowered entrepreneurs, in reality, they felt like gig workers dependent on the platforms dictating their visibility, reach and ultimately, their income.

The internet once promised democracy, but platforms became dictators. It became clear that 99% of income goes to the top 1% of creators, and a creator ‘middle class’ never materialised. Where money flows, money follows, and VCs sharply pulled funding from the sector.

Whilst the premise of the creator economy may not have materialised as envisioned, it lives on. Goldman Sachs predicts a $480 billion total addressable market by 2027. People who were once ‘creators are now ‘media business owners’ or ‘one-person businesses.’ The creator economy has shape shifted.

Get informed: The Realities of Creation

1/ What Happened to the Creator Economy?
(Source: Every, June, 2023)

Every’s staff writer Evan Armstrong called it correctly: in 2023 we entered a ‘creator economy winter’. Success stories like Mr Beast are the exception and not the rule. As a result, funding for creator-focused businesses quickly dried up, and giants like Linktree, Substack, and Cameo made cuts.

Evan argues this was inevitable: a creator is a small media business. Small businesses and media business are “shitty businesses and shitty investments” with unfavourable macroeconomic terms.

Despite 90% margins available to creators, low transactional costs and free distribution… the bar to entry for becoming a creator is so low that in the end, millions of people can create, and the same millions of people (creators) are left competing over ‘scraps’.

The intermediaries who own the distribution networks (Google, Facebook, Twitter) or creation technology (Apple, Sony etc) are the true financial winners in the creator economy. Not the creators themselves, nor rarely the platforms serving the creators. Only if a platform can provide distinguishable benefit in terms of distribution or monetisation to a creator will it succeed. The obvious winner being OnlyFans, creating a class of adult entertainment that no other platforms wanted to go near.

As Evan points out, by in large, creators are small online businesses and small businesses inherently have a high failure rate. But that doesn’t mean the model is dead. There will be winners of the creator economy, we will just call them… media.

2/ Sorry (Not Sorry), Self-Promotion Doesn't Work
(Source: What Works, Feb 2024)

Writer, critic and podcaster Tara McMullin thinks deeply about making a living online - and will return as our expert interviewee this month!

In this viral essay Tara reminisces about how content online in the ‘early days’ involved far less focus on audience-building strategy and tactics. People just created. But, growth was also easier to come by.

For today’s creators, attention is more challenging. However competition is not the primary reason for slower audience growth. ‘Enshittification’ is. 

First coined by Cory Doctorow, enshittification is the predictable lifecycle - aka decay - of platforms. Platforms start off in their quest for users by generously providing organic reach, before the next phase of attracting brands as advertisers. Later, the platforms will strip both users and brands of their privileges, and reach gets harder for everyone. Only platforms themselves come out winners.

Tara uses this process to explain how during the final stage of a social media platform’s lifecycle, a creator must work harder than ever to stand out online and this very fact changes what creators make.

The diminishing returns of a platform lead to incentives for more self-promotion, since creators see that as the solution to getting the attention they need. But messages like “hire me” and “sign up to my course” don’t actually work, she argues. Rather, creations that are inherently ‘remarkable’ and designed with the platform’s specific medium and users in mind, will get the best results.

If we (creators) stop self-promoting, then not only can we succeed online but we’ll make the overall experience of using these platforms better for everyone using them, she appeals. Enshittification doesn’t have to be an inevitability, apparently.

3/  The Creator Economy is facing an authenticity crisis
(Source: Fast Company, February 2025)

Tech journalist Andy Hirschfeld says that the creator economy was once believed to be the future of media. But, in its current form, is under an existential threat. Legacy media has its own challenges, and so do creators.

There is an authenticity crisis at play in the social media landscape. The ubiquity of AI-generated content, and sheer volume of brand endorsements in newsfeeds has left consumers more skeptical about content authenticity. As a result, influencers are being increasingly ignored. A survey of 292 CMOs showed a 23% decline in social media marketing in 2023 and another 11% decline in 2024 — put in real terms, that looks like brands reducing marketing spend on influencers.

The last US election has heightened this crisis further, as concerns surrounding misinformation lead to fingers pointing back to influencers.

We once thought BuzzFeed, Vice and Gawker were invincible. Their demise should be a cautionary tale for creators/influencers reliant on a specific platform to make a living. The solution? Creators must rely less on one platform, broaden their skills, and even work with clients and projects offline. Who’d have thought!

Trailblazers

• Creator Science —  Founded by Jay Clouse, Creator Science offers tools, courses and community, promising insights to become a ‘smarter creator’.

• Passionfroot —  Cofounded by Jennifer Phan and Jens Joseph Mannanal, Passionfroot offers a ‘shop front’ for brands partnering with B2B Creators. Its booking platform and ad network reduces friction on both sides of the marketplace.

• Creator Wizard — Early YouTuber Justin Moore learnt the tactics for securing high value brand deals years ago and now provides ‘sponsorship education’ to make brand deals more viable for creators.

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Today’s “Overheard”: Kendall Cherry, Founder of ghostwriting agency The Candid Collective.

“I'm seeing behind the closed doors of businesses and corporations, and what I'll share is that the work they're "laying off" isn't going away. It's being reallocated from full-time employee work to service providers like me. Why? Because it's less risky, cheaper (no employee benefits) and allocating work in this way is more agile if they have to pivot, slow down or even cancel a project due to budget cuts."

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A Final Word (from me)

Whilst I never personally identified with the term ‘creator’ I’ve spent half a decade benefiting from the economics of the creator economy. My other newsletter has been the fuel of my six figure coaching practice for entrepreneurs.

Now, writing Monday Mornings, my second newsletter, I’ve been met with a lot of questions about how it fits into my strategy, about whether I’m selling anything, about paywalls, platforms etc.

So consumed by the business model behind content creation, such questions overlook the fact that creating can be an end in and of itself. That creation can offer enjoyment, learning, and a reason to connect with interesting people.

But these questions point to a simple fact: economic incentives shape nearly all creative work online today.

Whether we are self-employed or in a 9-5, the reality is that creating work online is what sets us apart from the pack. It is entwined with ‘personal branding’, and we know that having a distinguished personal offers a level of security in an employment/entrepreneurial landscape that offers very little. Content creation (or personal branding) has become a means of empowerment because it is an opportunity magnet and offers a sense of agency. Creating sticks our neck above the parapet and says “hire me!”.

But it is not a panacea for stability. If the gig economy taught us anything, it is that autonomy without ownership is just another form of precarity. If the creator economy is to provide a viable alternative to traditional career paths, it needs to rely less on the whims of a platform, funding, or algorithms. It requires true ownership.

That’s why I’m doubling down on newsletters.

And, in other news this month….

👍Monday Marvels

Sick days for all! The UK announced a sick pay boost for low earners: now 1.3 million low-income workers who were not previously eligible will receive 80% of their usual salary from the first day of illness. “No one should ever have to choose between their health and earning a living.”— Liz Kendall, secretary of state for work and pensions.

👎 Monday Moanings

The job market has slowed and graduates are the worst affected, with a 59% increase of applications per role. Employers are “hoarding” staff until the economic outlook becomes clearer, according to a source from Indeed which is choking off opportunities for new entrants. 

I’ll be back in your inbox in two weeks, joined by interviewee Tara McMullin, who has a lot more to say on today’s topic!

I’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s topic. What else do you think should be considered? Share your opinions in the comments!

Monday Mornings is written and hosted by Ellen Donnelly, a writer, speaker, and coach focused on the future of work. She specialises in the shift towards mass entrepreneurialism, and supports founders navigating pivots in her private coaching practice, The Ask.