Software developer and blogger Seth Corker posts on both Medium and his own self-hosted blog, Benevolent Bytes.
After attending the Grant for the Web workshop at MozFest, Seth wrote a post outlining the challenges that large web platforms pose to independent creators like himself:
As a content creator, whenever you rely on a platform which you have no control over, you are putting trust into the platform. You are trusting that what you create will be served, your rights will be preserved and the platform will act in your best interest.
The use of AI recommendations further exacerbates the unequal power dynamic between creators and platforms and can impact not just the kind of content people create, but the quality as well.
Is your article good? Does your video contain copyright material? Is your content relevant? These questions are delegated to AI and algorithms which are controlled by the platforms...The challenge with these systems is that they are often opaque. They are a blackbox to creators and sometimes even to the platform holders. This leads to creators catering their content to appeal to the algorithm. It can stifle creativity and encourages a particular kind of content creation...Creators have to ponder the decisions of an algorithm they have no control over.
Read Seth's full post, The Future of Web Monetization, on his blog and join the Grant for the Web forum to chat with creators proposing alternatives to the web's current business models.