"The cost of making high-quality media is collapsing. The cost of getting anyone to care about it is not. As generative A.I. turns production into a near-commodity, cultural power is shifting from studios and galleries to the platforms that allocate attention and the algorithms that determine who gets paid. The new patrons are not moguls with checkbooks; they are recommendation systems tuned for engagement and brand safety."
"On YouTube, the rules of the YouTube Partner Program, set and revised unilaterally, determine whether a creator receives 55 percent of watch-page ad revenue for long-form content and 45 percent for Shorts. Those headline rates are stable, but the platform's enforcement posture has shifted: as of July 15, YouTube began tightening monetization against "inauthentic" or mass-produced A.I. content, a clarification aimed at the surge of spammy, low-effort videos."
Generative A.I. has drastically reduced the cost of producing high-quality media, enabling automated storyboards, shot generation and audio remixing at scale. Cultural power and revenue are shifting from traditional studios and galleries toward platforms and recommendation algorithms that allocate attention and determine payouts. Platforms set monetization rules and enforce them, using policy changes and disclosure requirements to curb low-effort, mass-produced synthetic content, though detection remains imperfect. Royalty and payout reforms, such as Spotify's 2024 overhaul, raise thresholds, throttle noise content and penalize artificial streaming, concentrating earnings at the top and raising barriers for the long tail.
Read at Observer
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