The premise was that anyone could build an audience and earn from it directly. The premise was true. What it produced is an income distribution that looks exactly like traditional entertainment: a small number earning enormously, a long tail earning almost nothing.
Why concentration happens
Attention compounds. An audience makes content more visible, which grows the audience. The algorithms that drive discovery reward what is already popular. And platforms benefit from stars, who anchor viewers to the platform.
None of that is a conspiracy. It is how attention markets work, and they have always worked this way.
What the middle looks like
Creators with modest audiences earning a living through diversification – not platform payments, which are small, but products, memberships, sponsorships, and services sold to the audience.
That is a small business with a marketing channel, and the people succeeding at it think of it that way.
The platform dependency
An audience on a platform belongs to the platform. Algorithm changes, policy shifts and demonetisation have destroyed creator incomes overnight, repeatedly. The response among serious creators is to move the audience somewhere they control – email lists, direct memberships – and to treat platforms as acquisition rather than as the business.
What is changing
Synthetic content is flooding the same channels, competing for the same attention, at near-zero production cost. That raises the value of anything demonstrably human and lowers the value of anything that could have been generated.
The realistic view
A legitimate career for a small number of people, a supplementary income for a larger number, and an aspiration for most. Which describes acting, music and writing too.