To Imitate or to Innovate? Content Creation in the Era of the Creator Economy

Abstract

The creator economy is becoming increasingly valuable for creators to create and monetize their content. A significant issue within the creator economy is that while a few leading contents achieve tremendous success, the majority of content becomes obsolete and receives limited visibility. How should creators design content that survives in this highly competitive and concentrated market? In this paper, we empirically address this question by investigating a unique dataset from non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which are gaining popularity since 2021. Our results indicate that, first, a moderate level of imitation benefits content. By emulating popular content to a certain extent, content creators can leverage the popularity of leading content while adding their own unique value. This allows them to benefit from the success of popular content while maintaining their individuality. Moreover, we find content to be more successful when they differ from other content and exhibit diversity, showcasing the importance of innovation. Together, this research shows the role of imitation and innovation in the creator economy.

Keywords: Creator economy, content creation, imitation, innovation, non-fungible token