The Creator Economy Unraveled

How Substack, Patreon, and Skool Are Redefining Stardom

In 2017, a writer named Heather Cox Richardson sat down to pen a newsletter. Not for a newspaper, not for a magazine, but for Substack, a platform that promised her something radical: direct access to readers who’d pay for her words. Her newsletter, Letters from an American, became a juggernaut, reportedly earning over $5 million annually by 2025. Across the digital landscape, MrBeast, the YouTube titan with 406 million subscribers, wasn’t just uploading videos—he was building a burger empire, pulling in $54 million a year. Meanwhile, a lesser-known coach named Samuel Earp ditched Patreon for Skool, finding a home for his art school where community trumped algorithms. These aren’t just success stories; they’re the pulse of the creator economy, a $250 billion juggernaut in 2023, projected to hit $480 billion by 2027, according to Goldman Sachs.

What’s driving this seismic shift? It’s not just tech—it’s a cultural rebellion. Creators like Chance the Rapper, who released his Grammy-winning mixtape Coloring Book independently, and Casey Neistat, who turned vlogging into a lifestyle brand, are rewriting the rules. Platforms like Substack, Patreon, and Skool aren’t just tools; they’re stages for a new kind of stardom, where gatekeepers are obsolete, and audiences are currency. But here’s the question that lingers like a half-answered email: Are these platforms empowering creators or chaining them to new digital overlords?