Passion Economy News: TikTok Deal, Creator Debt Financing, OnlyFans Disruption, Artist Monetization, and More

Welcome to the inaugural issue of the Means of Creation weekly news roundup where we break down the latest news on the passion economy — platforms, creators, startups, and trends.

The first month of the Weekly News Roundup will be a free beta, so we are looking for your feedback! We want to make this the most helpful resource for founders, investors and creators in the passion economy and we welcome all feedback (form also linked at the bottom). Let’s get into it.

Stuff We Published

In case you wanted to catch up on any of the past Means of Creation episodes, we’ve posted them on YouTube! Here are a few of our most popular ones:

• Blake Robbins on the future of media, Twitch, OnlyFans, and creator monetization (YouTube)
• Polina Marinova on The Profile, being an independent writer, and changes in the media industry (YouTube)
• Greg Isenberg on unbundling consumer social networks, and the state of online communities in 2020 (YouTube)

View more episodes at the Means of Creation YouTube Channel. 

Top of Mind

TIKTOK

ByteDance says it will keep control of TikTok under deal with Oracle // New York Post

After months of waffling and uncertainty (is it here to stay, is it not?), it turns out that the TikTok deal will go through, and the app won’t be banned in the US. ByteDance will retain 80% control while Oracle will buy 12.5% and Walmart will own 7.5% that values TikTok around $60 billion. In this deal, Oracle will be able to access the TikTok “source code” to ensure that the American data is secure.

However, this story is evolving by the hour. Over the weekend, Trump said that the US will have “total control” and implied a majority ownership for American companies. If you add the investment by American-based investors (including Sequoia, General Atlantic and Tiger Management) to the 20% owned by Oracle and Walmart, the combined stake would be worth 53% of the firm. US citizens will also occupy four of five TikTok board seats. 

As part of the deal, Trump said that the companies also agreed to pledge $5 billion to an education fund that will be directed toward teaching American children “the real history of our country.” However, there are concerns over this as well. ByteDance first heard about the fund from news outlets, and the fund has Democrats concerned. “[The] proposed “1776 Commission” has alarmed many Democrats, who fear the president is seeking to diminish or obscure the role of slavery in U.S. history.”

One of the most interesting parts of this entire saga (as well as earlier events this year, like the shutdown of Mixer) is how much it has boosted awareness among creators of the importance of having direct access to one’s audience, and that one can be de-platformed not just by a company, but by a country. Concerns around platform risk have led to products such as Community, RIP.FYP, as well as more broadly to companies like Linktree that help creators shift audience attention to other platforms. In coming years, we anticipate that the question of how to truly own one’s audience and mitigate platform risk will become more top-of-mind for creators.

CREATOR ECONOMY FINANCING

A Creative’s Subscription Revenue: Can you lend against it? // Connor Hale, Medium

A new three part series about the creator economy was published on Medium exploring the idea of underwriting debt using the cash flows from creator subscription revenue.