The Parasite Economy: An Upside for Creators

Today, I’ll explain the Parasite Economy and why it is destroying businesses but opening up new opportunities for creators.

For many years, I’ve subscribed to Ted Gioia’s newsletter, “ The Honest Broker.” It’s hard to describe this newsletter. Ted is a music critic and historian whose musings tend to wander all over the cultural landscape. But he has a knack for consistently connecting the dots in insightful ways, and I almost always learn something from his posts.

In an article titled “Are We Now Living in a Parasite Culture?” Ted makes an observation that is profound in its simplicity and wisdom. It goes like this:

“Nowadays, parasite businesses are the largest corporations in the world. Their technologies do many harmful things, but lately they have focused on serving up fake culture, leeching off the creativity of real human artists.

“Just take a look at the dominant digital platforms-and consider how little they actually create. But the amount of leeching they do is really quite stunning, especially when compared with the dominant businesses of the past.

• What does Facebook really create? Almost nothing. It relies on 3 billion users to create content (ugh!-their word, not mine), and then monetizes these people and their unpaid labor.