From Follower Graphs to Ownership
Dave Nemetz, founder of Reverb Ventures, on the intersection of web3 and the creator economy
This shift says the center of gravity in creator distribution had moved from follower graphs to recommendation graphs. Instagram still had scale, but as it matured it became a harder place for legacy creators to keep getting unpaid reach from the format they had built around, while TikTok made discovery feel open again by pushing short videos from strangers to huge audiences. That made TikTok feel like the faster path to attention, especially for creators trying to break out or start over.
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The deeper issue was not just audience taste, but control. Large platforms optimized for viewer engagement first, which left creators exposed to algorithm shifts, monetization changes, and weaker economics for everyone outside the top tier.
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Creator tools increasingly treated TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube as top of funnel only. Products like Beacons and Gumroad were built around turning social attention into email capture, direct sales, memberships, and digital downloads that creators controlled themselves.
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The platform mix also changed by workflow. Stan first grew through TikTok creators, then found that creators were more likely to actually monetize on Instagram, which shows that discovery and monetization often happen on different platforms even for the same creator.
The next phase is even more platform agnostic. New social apps will keep reshuffling where creators get attention, but the winners in the creator stack will be the tools that treat every platform as rented distribution and help creators move fans into owned channels where revenue survives the next algorithm change.