Web 3.0 for Asian creators
Written by Sneha Nair
Designed by Yash Saxena
The creator economy is currently booming with more than 50 million people around the world who consider themselves creators. But Asian Creators don’t seem to be seeing the same kind of returns as their North American counterparts.
This is where Web 3.0 heralds some interesting possibilities
Web 3.0 (Web3) is the third generation of the evolution of web technologies. In Web 3, platforms are becoming community-led, making it easier for both creators and their audiences to profit from their contributions.
The creator economy is known to be skewed toward White creators.
With better resources and a user base that is willing to pay, creators from the West fall in the top tier of Creators, earning more than any other country. The origination, algorithms, and monetization models of platforms such as Facebook, and Google tend to support this as well.
While Web 2.0 had platforms such as Spotify for Musicians to put their music out, it takes roughly 250 streams for an artist to earn $1, with the rest of the profits going towards Spotify itself. But now, Sound.xyz is a new startup looking to help recording artists monetize their community through NFTs, as they build out a suite of tools designed to bring musicians into Web 3.0.
How will Web 3.0 work for Asian Creators?
Making up more than 60 percent of social media users worldwide, Asia takes up the majority share of the ecosystem. This also means that there is a large and untapped fandom that exists on the continent.
Tokenising Fandom
With the combination of large Asian fan bases (K Pop, China, Indonesia) and major streaming platforms like Disney + not available in some Asian countries, Web 3.0 provides a unique opportunity for Creators to convert the intensity of Asian fandom into more meaningful interactions with the community. Through NFTs, digital collectibles, and social tokens creators can finally interact with their fans without platforms taking a cut.
The biggest example of this would be the very first Web3 Con, founded by Filipino Tech, Anotoys Collectiverse founder and CEO Oscar G. Tan-Abing Jr. who unveiled his company’s plans to reshape how the world enjoys fandom through emerging web3 technologies.
Web3 Con is the largest web3 and crypto conference in Southeast Asia to date, bringing together thousands of futurists, venture capitalists, innovators, fintech, and web tech aficionados from across the region.
These fan bases also have the potential to develop, breaking through traditional means of engagement.
From Data Monarchy to Data Democracy
The future of trust is directly related to the end of centralization—and that can only be developed on open and permissionless platforms.
Facebook and Youtube are known to censor content that might seem offensive to a certain community, and more often than not it is white American creators who gain the most in terms of engagement and online attention, thanks to the platform's systems of algorithmic promotion of content. This is often the kind of gatekeeping that platforms use, which keeps creators of color at a disadvantage.
But with Web 3.0 and decentralized technology, Asian creators can now monetize their own content. With over 450 blockchain-related startups in Singapore alone, Southeast Asia is one of the fastest-growing marketplaces for Web 3.0 applications ( Redseer).
Asian creators benefit not only from their sheer numbers but also from their audience’s willingness to embrace immersive experiences like Gaming.
Asian creators benefit not only from their sheer numbers but also from their audience’s willingness to embrace immersive experiences like Gaming.
Online Gaming
There are 3 billion gamers globally who spend US$200bn a year on consoles and in-app purchases such as NFTs. Korea, the Philippines, and Vietnam are the fastest-growing gaming economies in the world. (Antler). Unlike traditional games where once you leave a game, online gaming is seen by many as a precursor to the decentralized world of the metaverse, thanks to its virtual spaces where users can explore, interact and buy digital assets. China, South Korea, and Japan have the biggest online gaming reach, showing their predisposition towards virtual engagement. It’s this open and receptive nature that Asian creators can look to channel when designing new forms of interaction.
Asia’s phenomenal digital rise has primed both creators and audiences for the leap into Web 3.0 that will allow creators and their fans to build ecosystems that serve them, as opposed to Big Tech. This new infrastructure has the potential to stimulate a new generation of Asian creators, resulting in a much more diverse, representative, and independent creator economy.
It took over 10 years to transition from the original web, Web 1.0, to Web 2.0, and it is expected to take just as long, if not longer, to implement and reshape the web with Web 3.0 entirely, but the future looks promising.