Why Bitcoin is the Future of the Creator Economy

3 min readJul 17, 2021

It’s time to rethink the old social media paradigms

Imagine an online social experience where you are rewarded for your contributions no matter how small, both as a creator and as a user. The current paradigm disallows this and builds a very narrow gate where only vetted creators can monetize their content. To top that, traditional social media platforms take a hefty chunk of donations with fees as high as 55%. That’s all going to change soon.

N2N2 flips this model around. Peer-to-Peer. It allows direct audience-to-creator, audience-to-audience, and creator-to-audience contributions. The implications for these are massive. Social interactions become more democratized and focused on the positive interactions more than the influencer. Creators are rewarded with as minimal third-party friction as possible.

In a sense, N2N2 is a product of Bitcoin that may be seeing its fruition soon.

Bitcoin lightning can rejuvenate the creator economy

Contributor friction in social media patronage is primarily hobbled by archaic payment systems. Legacy financial bridges make the prospects of micro-contributions untenable. As Bitcoin evolves to its secondary layer, the possibility of making micro-transactions is a potent growth area that could nurture more creativity. Think of Bitcoin Lightning as somewhat akin to drip-irrigation. Small quantities in persistent, frictionless and efficient quantities.

Ethereum tries to innovate in this area but at a cost. In the NFT (non-fungible tokens) space, minting digital art takes a lot of gas fees that could be substantial for creators in developing countries. Micropayments are impossible with ETH.

A utility that uses Lightning will not have this problem.

Micro-contributions are the key to a circular creator economy

This is the case with YouTube’s Super Chat feature which allows viewers to donate to streamers. The caveat is YouTube chooses who gets to have this feature and takes a hefty 30% to 55% fee.

Facebook takes billions of user data and weaponizes this for advertisers. Worst, it algorithmically chooses content for us thereby creating a dangerous cycle of echo-chambers and linear thinking.

N2N2 disavows this kind of system and makes a strong use case application for the lightning network. Ethical, peer-to-peer with a decentralized governance mechanism, N2N2 is aiming to spark the perfect balance for a more vibrant social media ecosystem.

The Future is Decentralized

De-platforming, shadow-banning, censorship, government oversight — these are all words that mark the current landscape of traditional social media. Big tech platforms have grown so big and so powerful that they even have the power to control which direction discourse leads to. In the name of security, we have surrendered our self-sovereignty along with our many freedoms.

Sublime creativity can only thrive through freedom. Artists, writers, streamers, podcasters and others stand to benefit from a system of equitable value transfer. By decoupling content and freeing the creator from the ambit of centralized big tech, we are bridging many types of rifts between people that should have been vanquished a long time ago. This was the original internet of the Internet.

N2N2 allows creators to control their narrative without the hindrance of big brother nitpicking on every single word or sentence you say. Through bitcoin lightning, we may have hope, to see a more democratized and freer society.

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