We have it all heard before: the Creator Economy is the future of media. A new dawn of individual empowerment. A world where anyone with a smartphone and passion becomes a brand, a business, and a broadcaster. A world where individuals can challenge entire media empires.
It is a seductive narrative because we all love the empowerment of each and everyone – and most all the David against the Goliath hero story. It is a story that sells well these days in our industry as we are desperate for growth, innovation, or relevance. I am to be blamed myself: I have helped to spread that myth. But I came to the conclusion that it is also misleading. And possibly dangerous if taken at face value.
The myth sells well. If you look around on Linkedin, at conferences and publication, one can think we are at a wave of creators spreading around the world and bringing traditional media and broadcasters to the brink of extinction. But as so often in our industry, we fall again for a trend that is true in one market (namely USA) but the reality in the rest of the world is more sobering. And for those outside the Silicon Valley storyline, potentially harmful.
So let me help to clear the fog and all the dust that is spread in your eyes with those big beautiful presentations on stage and those breathless prophecies to read everywhere that the creators will save media. They will not.
The Illusionary Myth of the Solo Creator
Let me start with the central fantasy: that the Creator Economy is about individuals. It isn’t or at least not in the way people think.
Yes, platforms love to promote the image of the bedroom YouTuber who “made it.” But the reality? The top 1% of creators who earn real money are not solo. They are teams. They are brands. They are companies in disguise.
They rely on production crews, social media managers, brand partnerships, licensing experts, data analysts, accounting staff, legal support and often even traditional media infrastructure for scale and polish.
For instance, we recently consulted a very successful Youtube creators business. They have carved out a specific genre and are probably leading the pack globally in that type of content. But to be in this position they have a staff of around 30 people plus dozens of creators that work for them (at very low cost by the way, because they are located in low labor cost countries). And their annual revenue wouldn’t even bring them near the revenue that a small production company in Europe secures. And not to forget that a massive part of their revenue comes from the US and hence is in some way only a labor cost arbitrage business.
In essence, the Creator Economy, at scale, mirrors the very industrialized models it claimed to disrupt.
Most Creator Content Is Shallow, Disposable, and Easily Replaced
I had to curb your enthusiasm for all wonderful content that we supposedly get from these talented creators. Because much of what fuels the Creator Economy is disposable. Not in a moral sense, but in a structural one.
It’s optimized not for depth, relevance, or creative excellence but for algorithmic engagement. It is meant to grab attention (like my posts on Linkedin sometimes). And now, it is increasingly created, edited, and repackaged by AI.Viral by accident, forgettable by design. A flood of motivational fluff, productivity hacks, and AI-generated explainers, all chasing fleeting attention with no shelf life.
Why pay a creator when an AI can produce ten versions of the same motivational clip, recipe reel, or explainer video?
In this landscape, only a few creators offer unique cultural value. The rest are noise that can be easily swapped, easily forgotten.
Platform Capitalism: The Tyranny of Algorithms and Superstars
We need to address a new tyranny that the Creators Economy has brought to life. Instead of liberating the masses it has made us into the slaves of algorithms and Big Tech. Let us drop the pretense: this is not a democratization of media. It is a concentration of value.
Welcome to the superstar economy: a system in which a tiny elite captures most of the value. The same network effects that reward early or loud players also punish the rest. You are not just competing with your peers – you are competing with the entire internet, 24/7, and an algorithm that changes without warning.
In this model:
• Only a handful of people get the full attention
• 1% of creators earn 90% of the income
• Algorithm tweaks can destroy your business overnight
• You must constantly produce, perform, and promote
It is servitude to platform capitalism performed by digital piecework, governed by opaque systems owned in California.
Rented Land, Foreign Rules
The real risk is structural. The entire Creator Economy is built on platforms we don not own, nor do we really understand how they work, and we have no chance of controlling them.
This is the big, uncomfortable question no one wants to ask:
What happens when YouTube changes its monetization policy?
When Instagram deprioritizes your content?
When TikTok is banned in your country?
When AI-generated clones flood your niche?
The entire Creator Economy sits on rented land owned by US-based tech giants, driven by opaque algorithms and monetization schemes. If you are building your future here, you are building at the mercy of entities that don not know your name and do not care about your livelihood.
European creators (or actually any other foreign person), and the media businesses that support them, are effectively operating on foreign soil. And that soil can vanish beneath your feet.
The US Myth Doesn’t Translate Globally: Context Matters
Silicon Valley thrives on exporting blueprints. But the Creator Economy doesn’t travel well.
It assumes a world obsessed with visibility, self-branding, and hustle. But what about regions with strong public service ethics, privacy protections, or aging populations with different media rhythms?
What works in the US does not automatically work elsewhere. The Creator Economy was born in Silicon Valley, fed by venture capital, and scaled in a society obsessed with self-branding – all to feed a new technology ecosystem and the monetisation model that supports it. But what about countries with:
• Smaller language markets?
• Different cultural norms around visibility?
• Stronger privacy and labor protections?
• Older populations with different media habits?
Take markets like Germany, Japan, Spain, Italy, Poland or Portugal, with aging societies and different media habits. The infrastructure, incentives, and cultural attitudes simply don’t support this model at scale and nor should they.
The myth was made for Manhattan, not Mainz.
What TV Can Actually Learn
Still, let us not be reactionary. As I know from decades of steering clients through shifts in the market, you want to ride a wave or learn to read the tides. There are aspects worth exploring: authenticity, agility, direct connection with niche communities.
These are ideas, concepts and attitudes that we should observce and learn from. Not though by just copying them, but by carefully integrating them in our own ecosystem.
Or even better: by creating a new ecosystem that combines the myth with reality and is indeed a liberating force for the masses. And that is exactly where we European excel..
TV and media can evolve by building durable systems instead of fighting for shelf space on foreign-controlled platforms. This is where a European Streaming Commons could step in:
A shared infrastructure to nurture creators, fund new formats, and retain cultural sovereignty without being slaves to algorithmic visibility or Big Tech’s whims.
Such a commons platform could:
• Support emerging talent without exploiting it
• Offer production resources, training, and rights-based models
• Build alliances with creators that respect quality, continuity, and care
• Move beyond platforms to foster public interest ecosystems
Netflix is already experimenting here: running training camps for producers, funding co-productions, offering technical resources to new voices. Some European-based public broadcasters launched their solutions and making forays into this territory. It needs more of that, and it needs to be done with boldness.
A Streaming Commons, not another VC-funded app.
Infrastructure, not influence scores.
Sovereignty, not servitude.
Stop Mistaking Noise for Progress: Less Worship, More Wisdom
The Creator Economy is not the great equalizer. It’s a mirror of the inequalities it claims to disrupt. And it should not be our blueprint for the future of media — especially not in Europe.
We don’t need to evangelize this model. We need to outgrow it.
We need alternatives, not just adaptations.
We need to rethink ownership, not just output.
And we need to stop falling for every US-born media myth.
Europe doesn’t need more “creators.”
It needs more systems that care who creates, and why.
TV still matters. Culture still matters. Infrastructure still matters.
TV is not dead. It has just been staring too long at US as a role model and been falling prey to the Big Tech dominance.
It is time to look up. And start building our own future.
If this resonates with you, we should talk.
What I talk about abobe is not just theory. It is based on work we do here at Global Media Consult: helping broadcasters, media companies and the related industries to rethink their strategies, navigate complexity, and design models that reflect their values, audiences, and long-term goals.
We support teams who want to build something different. Something rooted. Something that lasts.
Discreetly. Thoughtfully. Without hype.
