Several creators denounce the too anecdotal remuneration of the platform. Will TikTok have to review its copy?
TikTok’s growth is exponential. In just a few years, the Chinese social network has established itself as a benchmark in the video platform sector. In September 2021, the ByteDance tool passed the fateful milestone of one billion active users. The time has therefore come for TikTok to find a way to remunerate its content creators. In August 2020, the platform launched its Creator Fund and mobilized $200 million to pay its most popular users. The firm also announces that it wants to invest $1 billion over the next three years.
A little less than two years later, many creators are strongly criticizing the model adopted by TikTok. In a video on his YouTube channel, Hank Green explains that most Creator Fund users receive less than a dollar a day. Financial results which, according to him, do not reflect the popularity of the many videos shared every day. A problem which is explained by the way in which TikTok manages its remuneration, offering a static sum which is not linked to the rise in power of the social network. He thus considers to perceive 2.2 euro cents per 1,000 views.
The growl of the creators
The reactions following the posting of the Hank Green video were numerous. Mr Beast, one of the most influential YouTubers on the web, notably shared his financial results on TikTok. He explains that he received just under $15,000 for, according to his estimates, nearly a billion views on all of his videos. In particular, we can see revenues varying between 15 and 30 dollars each day in January 2022. Sums much lower than on YouTube, where he would have received 54 million dollars in 2021.
Here’s mine, I’m 2 lazy to count the views on my tik toks but it’s prob over a billion views pic.twitter.com/D8cSrBdXsZ
— MrBeast (@MrBeast) January 21, 2022
TikTok replica
The social network was quick to point out that the Creator Fund was not the only source of income for its users. Indeed, the social network also offers a marketplace, which allows them to find sponsors and partnerships. They can also produce videos on behalf of one or more brands, as is the case on most social networks. Nevertheless, TikTok says it has taken the comments of these creators into consideration. “We continue to listen to feedback from our community, and evolve our features to improve the Creator Fund participant experience.”
Towards a Premium version?
Like Twitter or Instagram before it, the platform is also experimenting with a new Premium subscriber feature. It will be for subscribers to a creator to pay a certain monthly sum in exchange for new content. For the time being, TikTok is only exploring this possibility and has not announced an official launch date at all.
