Hi Scapers,
We’ve noticed recently there is an increasing number of newsletters covering the weekly news of the creator economy. That’s awesome as it shows the growth in the space. As creators, we want to produce unique and valuable content for you. So this week we’re trying a new format to see if you like it. Please give us feedback as the greatest gift you can give us is strong signal.
The new format is simple. We pick something in the creator economy that happened this week that we think has deep implications. Then we give a bulleted list of ideas we have related to the topic. Hopefully these bullets sparks some conversation, debate, or even newsletter content of your own.
For the week of April 5th, Clubhouse’s creator tipping announcement is the topic:
Some thoughts:
Clubhouse beat everyone else in the drop-in audio space to the punch (Twitter has been talking about tipping publicly), good on them.
Globally tipping and digital gifting is massive, but not yet in the US. Could the entrance of Clubhouse and all the drop-in audio knockoffs catalyze this?
It’s interesting that Clubhouse started with tipping and not recurring club memberships. This may be due to the Apple tax issue (see below).
In live environments like Twitch, memberships (subscriptions) take on a hybrid form where they allow access for a month but usually also advanced types of emotes and interactions. Here is a great piece on why this is so powerful. Seems like Twitter could leapfrog Clubhouse by getting smarter about subs and the power of gifted subs.
There is a difference between getting paid and building community. Gifted subs focus on the later which is important, especially for an emerging platform like Clubhouse with so many competitors.
The payment is designed where 100% of the money goes to the creator. The tipper pays everything including the processing fee. This is similar to paying your friends on Paypal.
This is a pretty brash opening salvo in the monetization game, driving their own rate to 0 out of the gates. Twitter was already talking about going to 0 (see link above) and Zuck intimated in his Clubhouse with Josh Constine that they might do the same.
Someone in a Discord chat mentioned that a possible reason for having 0 processing fee is that it will allow Clubhouse to not pay Apple’s 30% in-app purchase tax. How Apple will skim cream off the top of the creator economy will be a big conversation this year.
The 0 processing fee, likely followed by Twitter and Facebook, is going to accelerate the race to the bottom that many creator companies face with their platforms. Currently you have companies like Patreon taking %5-12%, BuyMeACoffee is at 5%, Substack at 10% and Linktree at %0.5-1.75%. More on this dynamic in a longer thought piece coming soon.
So there we have it - a little test of a new format. Let us know what you think and please pass this along to anyone else who thinks about the creator economy all day long like we do :)
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
If you have not watched Jack Conte’s pom pom shaking extravaganza on the creator economy after their $155M raise announcement, we highly recommend you stop what you’re doing right now and watch it. It gives us the tingles and the feels!
Until next week,
Niel and Ryan