After two years and the lifting of many restrictions related to COVID-19, the world is welcoming a return to personal theater, cinema, comedy, music and sports. This has led some to wonder what will happen to the legions of digital creators who keep us busy and entertained while ordinary lives and the economies of billions in which they live have come to a standstill.
Will the world of catwalks and the artists they discovered during the pandemic forget, now the doors to festivals, fashion shows and concerts are open for them again? Is the creative economy, whose latest estimate is set to top $100 billion this year, strong enough to maintain a rapid return to real-life experiences?
I am convinced that this is the case. Government restrictions may have accelerated the pace of change, but the transformative trends in video streaming that we’ve seen during the pandemic started earlier and could have taken hold anyway.
And while I don’t claim to have an in-depth education in macroeconomics, I’m a technologist who has spent the past few years working on one of the most revolutionary new technologies to come out in decades: the blockchain. This is a technology that will completely change digital lives, increasing the creative economy along the way.
Related: Decentralization is revolutionizing the creative economy, but what will it bring?
Playing on the digital stage
The forced downturn has given many artists the time and pressure they need to experiment digitally, find new audiences and explore new ways to showcase their talent.
Even musicians who might never have thought seriously about live streaming a concert have entered the digital scene. There is evidence that this will continue. Take, for example, singer Dua Lipa, who broke pay-per-view records at Studio 2054 in 2020. At first, Dua Lipa was said to be hesitant, but decided to go the livestream route after being forced to postpone her album tour. It turned out to be a good conversationalist, with her digital appearance attracting over five million views around the world.
A survey conducted by Middlesex University funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council found that around 90% of musicians and 92% of fans believe that live broadcasting will continue to be an effective way to reach fans who do not want or can attend concert venues in a post-pandemic world. . . . Sellers should note: The study also showed that viewers do not expect free access to live music and are not particularly discouraged by paid access.
The growth of creative energy has also inspired the developer community. New niche streaming platforms have emerged, driven by the emergence of a low-cost decentralized infrastructure that allows application developers to encrypt video, data storage, and identity management without having to pay expensive central cloud providers for such services.
Related: Music in the Metaverse creates a social and immersive experience for users
These central suppliers will become increasingly defensive. Two notable incidents in 2021 are indicative: hackers attacked Twitch and released sensitive information about the code and users. In addition, Facebook has suffered serious reputational damage from its prolonged downtime, with whistleblowers claiming that management has repeatedly prioritized profit over security.
What will happen next?
The challenges of high technology and the restrictions associated with the pandemic have accelerated fundamental changes already underway in how the world produces, consumes and uses video content — changes that are likely to fuel the growth of the creative economy in the future. Given the increasing availability of low-cost decentralized blockchain infrastructure, these new players have an opportunity to create a significant challenge for FAANG-backed energy providers.
There are five ways the creative economy can grow and strengthen as a major force in global culture and entertainment:
Uniqueness: Private Access to Non-Foldable Tokens (NFT) and NFT Tickets are just two decentralized tools that improve the digital experience for event attendees: NFT tickets reduce scalping by giving attendees a unique memory, while tokens support a unique fan experience, such as to access To private groups and instant messaging with creators.
Fan Ownership: The Web3 era is defined by the shift from extracting value from tenants to increasing value for owners. Just as blockchain allows the masses to interact directly with their favorite creators, it provides a way to own assets in separate creative economies outside of traditional centralized platforms.
