Creator middle class

The phrase describes the gap between hobbyists earning pocket money and the handful of names everyone knows. A middle-class creator might have tens of thousands of followers and a full-time income, built from a mix of sponsorships, memberships, a product, a newsletter and some consulting.

Platform ad revenue rarely gets anyone there on its own, which is the whole point of the term. It exists as a counter to the winner-takes-all story, and as an argument that the useful question is how much revenue an audience produces per person rather than how large it is. Whether the middle class is growing or being squeezed is argued about constantly.