So many people on the feed changing their names to their personal websites post @balajis tweet earlier last month.

About time: this is just the beginning of a massive trend across social networks.

And it all adds up.

Almost every social network that is ad-driven is a media company, today or in the future.

That means a lot of creators and users are not going to ‘like’ it, eventually.

It presents a whole new world of possibilities on how we will consume content online

Creators in an ad-driven social network eventually end up serving the ‘advertiser’. The platform rewards you for ‘reach’.

One would assume that the content that has most reach is generally high quality, but that’s mostly not the case at scale.

But more 'reach' is dopamine.

‘More reach’ allows an ad agency sitting in a corner in the world to sell ‘reach’ to CMOs. KRAs get met.

Agencies pay creators. Everyone is happy.

Until time passes, and you have to let go of what you love to create what will work on the network.

This is not idle, especially for the kind of people 'creators' are.

The ability to ‘share what you know’ started with ‘ad-funded’ large social media businesses a decade back.

However, now it’s possible to go direct.

Good creators are more aware now and many have started knowing their real worth.

Users are lost in the swarm of great, good and garbage content.

So much so, that they will pay for structured content if it moves a needle in their life.

The future of how users consume anything online will likely have

1) Large ad-driven media companies that will become huge freemium offerings technically.

Most creators will use these to market their premium offerings.

Think @Facebook @YouTube @instagram @Twitter

2) Large subscription driven businesses who will bring together a collection of creators and solve an indispensable need/goal

Expect paying a huge premium to creators for staying. Maybe 'CSOPs'

@unacademy @gauravmunjal have set benchmarks here globally from India

3) Millions of small and large creators who will realise they can make a living off just a few loyal subscribers.

@david_perell @dvassallo @lennysan are already using platforms such as @gumroad @SubstackInc to grow direct

cc @shl @ljin18

We are already living in a world where every single person can be a brand/business, if they have the right tools and access.

Every person can be a media business, an educational institute, a concert company, an academy and what not..

Back home in India, it’s only a matter of time when this becomes a new normal to employment - we have the world’s largest, immensely talented and hard-working youth population, hungry to take over the world.

Platforms in (2) and (3) will create more entrepreneurs in the internet economy in the next decade than anything else that we have ever seen.

Musings that keep us awake at night @clubairblack !