He who controls the infrastructure controls the creator.
Creativity is a thirst that can only be quenched with attention. The person who delivers the creation to the attention that the creator craves owns not just the creation, but the creator itself. Historically, creative business has been run as a feudal enterprise where big distributors decide which art can reach the masses. Many creatives were buried under layers and layers of management institutions in order to create artificial opacity between the art and the attention that consumes it.
The artificial complexifying of social media algorithms is just the next move available to the feudalist. Since the artist has outgrown the opaque distribution channels, the new infrastructure of control is within social media and streaming platforms. It may take forever for artists to realize that the only way out of another's ownership is by building their own infrastructure.
The American rapper Jay-Z has always understood this game better than anybody in hip-hop culture. He co-founded Roc-A-Fella to own his masters, later maneuvered to lead Def Jam from the inside, and eventually broke away to build Roc Nation and Tidal. This is where he hit a wall and learnt the most important lesson about capital today: that it is racist. I wonder whether he has the balls to take a shot at a TikTok competitor. Not just TikTok actually, but a platform that will disrupt TikTok, Netflix, YouTube, and all other similar social media/streaming platforms, while at the same time leaving the creator to own their audience and do as they see fit with the attention their art can cultivate. And leave the current platforms for cooperate slop, propaganda and activism.
The creator today who is brave enough to renounce the easy platforms in favor of building distribution infrastructure transparent to them not only owns the future, but buys back his soul. This is the undeniable expected natural progression of the attention economy; any direction other than this would mean artificial, mostly violent, interference by the feudalists.
https://xkmato.com/what-is-wrong-with-ugandan-film-distribution