Shifting from Web2 to Web3: The adaptive creator experiences on blockchain-based video-sharing and streaming platforms

Abstract

Blockchains have inspired imaginaries of a new iteration of the internet, hailed as Web3, where the power of centralized platform companies would be limited and the ownership of personal data and content could be retained by their individual owners and creators. Web3 is expected to facilitate the emergence of novel protocols and platforms that enable decentralized coordination of data and digital assets. This article examines critically the experiences and imaginaries of creators working on two blockchain-based video-sharing platforms: Theta.tv and Odysee. Building on the studies of creator culture and institutionalist blockchain economics and based on open-ended interviews with the early adopters of these platforms, the paper investigates how the creators experience these decentralized social media applications in terms of their processes of governance, community creation, and career development. We show how the affordances of blockchains and creator expectations can result in further convergence of community management and career-building functions potentially benefiting creators. We also show that the new wave of decentralization, against optimistic blockchain visions, has not yet led to the distributed ‘ownership’ of social media networks. Rather, while blockchains seem to have increased creator autonomy and added career opportunities, novel forms of platform governance and power have also introduced new perceptions of precarity among creators.