This is the draft fifth chapter of my book, Infinite Content: AI, The Next Great Disruption of Media, and How to Navigate What’s Coming, due to be published by The MIT Press in 2026. The introductory chapter is available for free here. Subsequent draft chapters will be serialized for paid subscribers to The Mediator and can be found here.
Imagine that you wake up, pour your coffee, and head out the door for your morning commute. On the way, you skim the latest from your favorite influencer. You’ve never met him in person and he uses a pseudonym, but you feel like you know him. His stuff is always so timely. Today, you find yourself nodding in agreement. If we’re not careful, we’re heading for another monarchy! Everyone will be talking about this one.
You fold the pamphlet, step down from the carriage, and adjust your tricorn hat against the wind coming in off the harbor.
It’s 1788. You’ve just read one of The Federalist Papers and your favorite influencer goes by “Publius,” also known as Alexander Hamilton.
Most of us grew up in the era of mass media: national newspapers, syndicated radio, network television, Hollywood blockbusters, global streaming hits. But mass media is barely a century old. The first national wire services didn’t emerge until the late 19th century and the first true mass media, radio, didn’t offer national programming until the 1920s. For the five hundred years before that, the media landscape was highly fragmented. In the 19th century, the U.S. had thousands of small newspapers and pamphleteers, most with circulations in the hundreds or low thousands. Books and magazines were distributed through regional publishers and specialty imprints. You could be a celebrity in Boston and unknown in Philadelphia.
Before the rise of mass media, the entire media economy was a creator economy: low barriers to entry, individuals cultivating loyal, personal connections with small audiences, and the absence of centralized or corporate management. And, in many ways, now we’re heading back.
MrBeast isn’t exactly Alexander Hamilton, but he’s a lot more popular.
In 2012, Jimmy Donaldson started posting YouTube videos from his North Carolina bedroom. He was just 13. His first videos were, understandably, horrible. But from early on he spent countless hours dedicated to understanding YouTube's algorithm and what made videos successful.
He also tried a lot. He experimented with various content types, including gaming videos, reactions, and commentary on other YouTubers. His breakthrough came in 2017, when he gained attention for creating videos featuring lengthy stunts, such as counting to 100,000 over 40 hours or burying himself in a clear coffin for 50 hours. (That one gives me the willies.) The first video of his I remember seeing was when he put 100 million Orbeez (a polymer ball that swells to many times its original size when wet) in his friend’s backyard and waited for it to rain. Over time, he started to focus on philanthropic content, namely finding creative ways to give away money.
He reinvested heavily too. He distinguished himself among creators by putting almost all his revenue back into creating bigger and more elaborate videos. This approach helped him scale his business, eventually leading to the creation of multiple channels, business ventures, and a full production company employing hundreds of people. He reportedly spends about $2.5 million to produce each video.
Now at the ripe age of 27, he has the most-subscribed channel on YouTube, with over 400 million subscribers. He has more than 100 million followers on TikTok and another 75 million on Instagram. If you’re doing the math, that’s well more than half a billion people in total. Half a billion. Or more than five humans for every Orbeez he put in that backyard.
When MrBeast posts a new video, it often attracts over 100 million views within a few days. As I show in Figure 34, if you considered his videos cumulatively as a “show,” in 2024 he arguably produced the most popular TV show in the world; his videos collectively got more viewership (in hours, not the much-maligned measure of “views”) than any show on Netflix. Beyond his main channel, MrBeast has expanded into snack foods and numerous charitable initiatives. He also produced Beast Games for Amazon Prime Video, which was recently picked up for a second season. Beast Industries, his holding company, just raised capital at a $5 billion valuation.
In the process, he has become one of the most famous people in the world, inspired countless wannabees and copycats, and redefined success as a creator.
Figure 34. If You Regard MrBeast as a “Show,” It is the Biggest in the World
Note: For MrBeast, assumes 42% average video duration on long videos and 70% completion rate on short videos. Source: What We Watched: A Netflix Engagement Report - Jan-June 2024 and July – Dec 2024, VidIQ, MrBeast_Stats (on X/Twitter), The Mediator analysis.
Over most of the last century, the biggest studios, music labels, TV networks, newspapers and book publishers were not just cultural tastemakers, they were also cultural gatekeepers, controlling what we consumed and what we didn’t. Major music labels and book publishers effectively controlled retail shelf space, making it almost impossible for an independent artist or author to sell at retail. Similarly, an independent movie had almost no path to theatrical distribution unless a major studio picked it up. The broadcast networks controlled perhaps the most valuable shelf space of all, their primetime schedules.1
Over most of the last century, the biggest studios, music labels, TV networks, newspapers and book publishers were not just cultural tastemakers, they were also cultural gatekeepers.
As a result, there was little opportunity for independent musicians, writers, filmmakers, or game developers to get exposure for their work. And, even if they did, the best-case scenario was to get recognition and distribution from an established media company. Writers might blindly mail in treatments or manuscripts to publishers and be lucky to even hear a reply; musicians would busk, pass out tapes or CDs on the street, or work local gigs in the hopes of being discovered; a budding filmmaker might max out credit cards and cast friends to make a film and then submit it to a festival, fingers crossed not only that it would be accepted, but that a studio executive would see it and pick it up.
Figure 35. “Creator Economy” is a Relatively New Idea
Source: Google Trends.
Today, all that has changed. The so-called “creator economy,” a term that barely existed a decade ago (Figure 35), is one of the most powerful forces in media—and one of the only sources of growth. Billions of people publish content online—writing, songs, videos, or games—without anyone’s permission. Most kids don’t want to be astronauts or firemen, they want to be “creators” (57% of them, according to one survey). The most successful creators are bigger than all but the most popular Hollywood stars. They have hundreds of millions of followers and earn tens of millions of dollars each year (Figure 36), usually without the involvement of any traditional studio, label or publisher.
Figure 36. Most Followed Creators, 2024
Source: Forbes.
The disintermediation of traditional intermediaries is one of the six tectonic trends I introduced in Chapter 3. In this chapter, we’ll explore why traditional middlemen are losing bargaining power in media; how individual creators are exploiting that power vacuum to forge direct relationships with consumers and build businesses outside of the traditional media industrial complex; and why the creator economy will invariably continue to take share of the media and entertainment pie.
The thread that weaves through this chapter is that the internet democratized each step in media product development, to varying degrees. As GenAI compresses the cost of content creation toward zero, it will eliminate the remaining barriers to entry and complete this process.
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