In the last post, we looked at how crypto disappears when the experience is tailored around the end user. When things just work, people stop asking how and start focusing on why.

This time, we’re looking at one of the biggest “whys” behind everything Web3 is making possible in media: the idea that audiences can become something more.

Because the truth is, fans have always been the backbone of the entertainment industry. They buy the tickets. They spread the word. They make or break shows, films, and platforms.

But for the most part, they’ve never had a seat at the table. That’s starting to change.

The next era of entertainment will be built by fans, not just watched by them.

Fans Have Always Powered Success. They Just Never Shared in It.

Pick any cultural moment in the past few decades, a film franchise, a viral show, a breakout hit, and you’ll find the same thing behind it. A dedicated, passionate audience.

Fans aren’t passive consumers. They’re the force that drives visibility, builds communities, and turns content into culture. Yet, historically, they’ve had no voice, no ownership, and no upside.

They could make something a success, but they couldn’t participate in that success.

That gap is what Web3 is starting to close.

The Rise of the Participatory Fan

We’re already seeing the signs. Fans aren’t waiting for permission to get involved.

Crowdfunding platforms let audiences help launch films, games, and shows.

Communities on Discord and Telegram form around creators before the first episode airs.

Fan fiction, memes, fan art, these aren’t side effects. They’re early signals of people wanting a deeper stake.

Now, with blockchain tools, that participation doesn’t just live on social media. It can become part of the economic and creative engine itself.

What It Looks Like in Practice

In a stakeholder-driven ecosystem, fans can do more than watch. They can:

• Earn tokens for engaging, reviewing, and curating content
• Collect digital rewards tied to shows they love, from behind-the-scenes moments to creator drops
• Vote on projects or characters they’d like to see more of
• Support creators directly with tokens or NFT-based access
• Share in the growth of a show or series by being there from the beginning
  

This isn’t just interactivity. It’s co-ownership.

The audience stops being an algorithm input and becomes an active part of the creative system.

How RewardedTV Brings This to Life

This vision isn’t theoretical. We’ve been building toward it from day one.

At RewardedTV:

• Viewers earn tokens just by showing up and engaging with content
• Those tokens can unlock access, be used to support creators, or fuel the broader ecosystem
• Creators can raise support, fund new content, and reward their most loyal fans transparently
• The platform itself is governed by the community, not dictated by a central algorithm
  

Every viewer action builds value, not just for the platform, but for the viewer, too.

And every creator has the tools to turn their audience into a real community. One that shares in both the journey and the rewards.

This Isn’t a Gimmick. It’s a Shift.

What’s happening now isn’t a fan club with better merch. It’s a fundamental rethinking of what it means to be part of the entertainment industry.

Ownership is no longer reserved for shareholders. Influence isn’t limited to executives. Reach isn’t confined to marketing budgets.

When fans become stakeholders, everything changes:

• Loyalty deepens because there’s real alignment
• Communities grow because people feel seen, heard, and valued
• Stories expand because creators can build directly with their audience
  

This isn’t about replacing Hollywood. It’s about building something that couldn’t exist before.

A model where value doesn’t just flow from the top down, but across. Between creators and communities, backers and builders, fans and founders.

The Future Belongs to Those Who Build It

The old system asked fans to watch. The new one invites them to shape what comes next. We’re not just imagining that future. We’re living in the early chapters. And if the last few years have proven anything, it’s this:

People don’t just want to be part of something. 

They want to help create it. Now they can.

So far, we’ve talked about creators reclaiming control, audiences becoming participants, and blockchain helping shift the power dynamics in media. But even as these tools evolve, let’s be blunt, there’s still one big barrier to entry for most people:

Crypto still feels like crypto.

It asks people to manage wallets, understand gas fees, memorize seed phrases, and navigate interfaces built for developers, not everyday users. For most, it’s like being thrown in the cockpit of a spaceship when all they want is to press “play”

That friction is real. It slows adoption, limits experimentation, and keeps the promise of Web3 locked behind a technical learning curve.

But here’s the good news. The future of Web3 media won’t be defined by the complexity we see today. 

It will be defined by what people don’t see.

Complexity Is a Bug, Not a Feature

Right now, Web3 feels a bit like the internet in 1995. Every major wave of technology starts out clunky. In the early days of the internet, connecting required typing in IP addresses and configuring modems. Using email meant installing software, understanding POP3 settings, and hoping your message actually got through.

Eventually, those barriers disappeared behind intuitive interfaces. Today, we send a message, order a taxi, or stream a film with a few taps. The underlying protocols didn’t go away. They just became invisible.

Crypto will follow the same path. What feels hard now will soon become seamless. And when that happens, we won’t talk about onboarding or bridging or gas fees. We’ll just talk about what’s happening: creating, sharing, earning, owning.

Users Don’t Want Crypto. They Want Control

This is easy to forget in Web3 circles, but it matters. Most people don’t care about blockchain. They care about outcomes. They want:

• To support creators they love
• To earn rewards for their attention or engagement
• To feel confident that their contributions matter
• To trust that the system is fair, open, and built in their favor
  

If blockchain helps deliver those things, great. But it shouldn’t require a lesson in cryptography to get there. 

The best adoption strategy is to make the benefits feel natural and the tech feel invisible.

UX Will Lead the Next Wave

The crypto-curious aren’t waiting for another token. They’re waiting for better UX.

They’re waiting for platforms that feel like Netflix or Spotify. Familiar, intuitive, rewarding. With ownership baked in from the start.

That means:

• No wallet required to start
• Clear, simple language
• Actions that feel like any other app
• A smooth path to deeper ownership or participation when they’re ready
  

They don’t want to learn new systems. They just want to press play. 

The real tipping point isn’t more innovation. It’s less friction.

A Quiet Example: RewardedTV in Action

This is exactly what we’re focused on building. RewardedTV is a decentralized streaming platform, but you don’t need to know that to enjoy it.

You press play. You watch. You earn rewards.

You collect digital items tied to what you love. You review or share shows and get something back. You start building value just by being an active part of the experience.

Behind the scenes, blockchain makes all of this possible. But as a viewer or a creator, you never need to interact with a wallet or token unless you want to.

That’s the point. The infrastructure exists but it doesn’t get in your way so the content and the connection can take center stage. 

We’re Closer Than We Think

This shift isn’t years away. It’s happening now. Creators are launching projects without middlemen. Communities are backing pilots and getting rewarded for curation. Viewers are earning from the content they love, without even realizing they’re interacting with Web3 tools.

The more invisible the tech becomes, the more powerful it gets.

We don’t need to teach the world crypto. We just need to show what happens when the system works for everyone.

The Endgame Is Simplicity

The real win won’t come when everyone understands blockchain. It’ll come when no one has to think about it.

That’s when creators will stop asking how to get paid fairly and start expecting it. That’s when audiences will support stories they care about and know their engagement matters. That’s when platforms won’t control culture. They’ll serve it.

And that’s when we’ll know Web3 has done its job.

Because by then, it won’t even feel like Web3. It’ll just feel like the way things should work.

In Part 1, we explored how the creator economy gave individuals unprecedented power to publish and profit, but also revealed the limits of that power. Creators rose to the top of culture, but the platforms stayed in control.

Now we’re stepping into something different. Not just more creator tools or better monetization options, but a deeper shift. One that lets creators build their work, their communities, and their businesses on ground they actually own.

This is what real creator freedom starts to look like.

Creators Own the Audience Relationship

In the traditional model, followers aren’t really your audience. They belong to the platform. You can build a million-subscriber channel, invest years into your content, and still be just one policy change or algorithm tweak away from losing everything. One day you’re thriving; the next, your reach vanishes, your income drops to zero, and you have no way to contact your own community or even explain what happened.

Ask any YouTuber who’s seen their channel demonetized or a Twitch streamer who lost subs after a policy update. Years of work can disappear overnight, with no warning and no way out.

Blockchain flips that. When audiences engage through wallets, NFTs, or token memberships, creators don’t just see numbers on a dashboard. They gain direct access to their community.

That means creators can:

• Reward superfans directly
• Offer exclusive access or early releases without middlemen
• Move their audience with them, regardless of platform
  

It’s not about audience reach. It’s about audience sovereignty.

Revenue is Transparent, Automated, and Instant

No more 30-day payout delays. No more wondering what cut the platform took, or discovering hidden fees, missing revenue, and unexplained changes in your earnings buried in the fine print.

With smart contracts, creators can set revenue splits upfront. Every time a show is streamed, a token is sold, or a contribution is made, payment is distributed instantly. Not eventually.

This also means revenue can flow to everyone involved: editors, co-writers, voice talent, collaborators. All without relying on a messy back office.

It’s trust built into the transaction itself.

Fans Become Backers, Not Just Viewers

On traditional platforms, fans are just numbers. They can binge, comment, and share, but they have no real influence, no ownership, and their support rarely reaches the creator directly.

In Web2, fans consume. In Web3, fans participate.

They can back a project before it’s made. Hold a token that gives them voting power on future content. Earn rewards for curating or promoting work they love. Or collect digital moments and stories that deepen their relationship with the creator.

This isn’t just community-building. It’s co-building.

And it creates a feedback loop. Fans feel ownership, so they engage more. The creator earns more, so they reinvest. Everyone wins. No ads, no algorithms, no arbitrary reach caps.

The Platform Isn’t the Gatekeeper. It’s the Launchpad

This is the vision behind platforms like RewardedTV.

We’re building a system where creators can launch, grow, and monetize without giving up control. Where payouts are transparent, data is open, and the audience is part of the ecosystem, not just a number in the backend.

And where people don’t need to understand crypto to benefit from it.

Users can watch content and earn tokens. Creators can track performance and revenue in real time. And the value flows between all participants, not up to a platform.

The goal isn’t to replace Hollywood or compete with YouTube. It’s to offer a new kind of space, one built for creators and their communities together.

The Work Ahead

This shift won’t happen overnight. There are still hurdles: onboarding, education, user experience, and trust. Not every creator will want to jump in right away. And that’s okay.

But for those ready to take the leap, the tools are here. The audiences are ready. The possibilities are real.

The next era of the creator economy won’t be defined by virality. It will be defined by ownership.

Because this time, the infrastructure belongs to us.

In the last post, we looked at how the power in film and TV has always belonged to those who control the money, the distribution, and more recently, the data.

But something else has been happening in parallel. While traditional media doubled down on centralization, creators were building something new.

We all saw it unfold in real time. A teenager with a webcam could build a bigger audience than a cable network. A vlogger could sell out merch in minutes. A streamer could earn more in a month than a studio assistant does in a year.

For the first time, the tools to publish, promote, and profit were in the hands of individuals. And what emerged from that shift was something people started calling the creator economy.

But here’s the thing no one likes to admit.

Even now, it’s still not a fair fight.

The Platform Trap

Yes, creators have more power than ever. But that power comes with a catch.

Everything is routed through platforms: YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Spotify. Each has its own rules, revenue share, and algorithms. These platforms aren’t neutral pipes. They are middlemen with enormous influence over what gets seen, who gets paid, and who disappears without warning.

And creators know it. Because one change to an algorithm, one demonetization notice, or one content flag can wipe out an income stream overnight.

We’ve moved from being at the mercy of studio execs to being at the mercy of content platforms. The faces changed, but the leverage didn’t.

If anything, the system’s gotten more exploitative over time, a phenomenon known as “Enshittification.” The more value creators and audiences bring in, the more the platforms squeeze out, until almost nobody wins except the platform itself.

Creators Built the Culture. But Not the Infrastructure.

Think about it.

Nearly every cultural trend of the past decade, music, fashion, politics, even how people learn, has been shaped by creators.

They make the content that drives engagement. They build the communities that keep people coming back. They turn viewers into fans, and fans into movements.

But the infrastructure they rely on? It wasn’t built for them. And it definitely wasn’t built by them.

That’s why the relationship still feels off. Creators generate the value, but they don’t own the platform. They don’t own the audience. And they rarely own the upside.

The vast majority of creators see little real reward. For every breakout success, there are millions more whose work is just raw material for someone else’s profit.

What If Creators Could Own the Pipes, Too?

Here’s where things get interesting.

What happens when creators don’t just create content but also shape the platform it lives on?

That’s what blockchain technology makes possible. Not as hype, not as speculation, but as a way to rethink how content is shared, funded, and rewarded.

Instead of relying on a platform’s black-box revenue system, creators can use transparent smart contracts that distribute earnings automatically.

Instead of hoping an algorithm pushes their work, they can build directly with their community, turning fans into backers, holders, and co-owners.

Instead of renting attention from a platform, creators can build ecosystems that grow in value as they do. Audiences that stick around, invest in the journey, and participate in the outcome.

It’s not just a financial shift. It’s a structural one.

We’re Closer Than We Think

These ideas used to feel futuristic. Now, they’re already starting to take shape.

On decentralized platforms, creators are launching shows, releasing digital collectibles, and earning tokens tied to actual usage and engagement.

Fans aren’t just watching. They’re curating, voting, funding, and sharing. And getting rewarded for it.

We’re not just seeing a new kind of creator. We’re seeing a new kind of creator economy. One where value flows outward, not upward.

One where creators and communities grow together. And where the rules are written in code, not in boardrooms.

Up Next: What Real Creator Freedom Looks Like

Of course, it’s not perfect yet. There are still barriers: onboarding, UX, education, and trust.

But we’re making progress. And in Part 2, we’ll dive deeper into how platforms like RewardedTV are helping creators step off the algorithm treadmill, own their audience, and build for the long haul.

The creator economy changed everything. Now it’s time to change the infrastructure behind it.

In Part 1, we explored how the film and TV industry evolved from studio monopolies to data-driven streaming giants, and how, despite decades of disruption, the power has never really shifted into the hands of those who make or watch the content.

Today, though, we’re at an inflection point.

For the first time in a century, we don’t just have new tools. We have the chance to build an entirely different system, one where creators, not corporations, are at the center of the value chain. And where audiences aren’t just consumers, but active participants.

Blockchain isn’t the answer to every problem in media, but when it comes to power, transparency, and ownership, it’s a game-changer.

Here’s how.

1. True Vertical Integration Without the Monopoly

The old studio model worked because it controlled the entire lifecycle of a film: funding, production, distribution, and profit.

Blockchain lets us recreate that, but without centralizing power in a single entity.

Creators can now:

• Fund projects through NFTs or tokenized crowdsales
  
• Distribute via decentralized platforms, not dependent on major studios
  
• Earn revenue through smart contracts that pay out transparently and instantly
  
• Retain ownership over their IP, even as it’s licensed or monetized
  

It’s vertical integration, owned by the artists and their community, not by legacy studios.

2. Transparent, Automated Revenue Sharing

If we ask any filmmaker, actor, or screenwriter what the biggest pain point in the industry is, odds are they’ll mention the same thing: getting paid fairly and getting paid on time.

Smart contracts change that.

Every time a piece of content is viewed, licensed, or sold, royalties can be distributed instantly and on-chain. No middlemen. No opaque contracts. No creative accounting.

For once, the people doing the work get to see how the money flows. And they don’t need to fight for it. It’s baked into the code.

3. Creative Freedom Through Decentralized Funding

Of course, transparency and fair payouts are only part of the story. For many creators, though, the real roadblock comes much earlier in the process.

When creators pitch projects to studios, there’s always a filter: Is this commercially viable? Does it fit a brand strategy? Can it “travel well” globally?

Some of that makes business sense, but many important, bold, or personal stories never make it past that gatekeeping layer.

Blockchain opens up new paths to funding, directly from fans, communities, or mission-aligned investors. Whether it’s a docuseries, an indie film, or a niche genre, projects that would’ve been rejected in traditional rooms can finally be greenlit by the people who care most.

This isn’t just creative freedom. It’s creative resilience.

4. A Role for the Audience Beyond the Remote Control

If creators finally have new ways to fund and distribute their work, what about the audience?

For decades, viewers have been treated like data points: watch time, click rate, subscription churn. In the streaming economy, we’re inputs, not participants or fans.

Blockchain offers a different path, a completely new role for the audience:

• Watch-to-earn models reward attention, curation, and sharing
  
• Viewers can own collectibles, tokens, or NFTs tied to the content or creator
  
• Fans can vote on future projects, fund pilots, or even co-create alongside artists
  

This shift transforms the audience from passive observer to active participant. A new generation of modern-day patrons. Not just subscribers but people with real skin in the game.

5. This Isn’t Theoretical. It’s Happening.

This transformation isn’t just a thought experiment or some distant idea. We’re already building it and making it real, right now.

At RewardedTV, we’re taking these ideas and turning them into a real, working platform. One that:

• Pays creators instantly and transparently
  
• Lets fans earn for watching, reviewing, or curating content
  
• Opens the door for new projects to get funded by the communities who believe in them
  
• Aligns the incentives of everyone involved, creators, viewers, supporters, around shared success
  

We’re not trying to rebuild the old studio system. We’re building something better.

A place where creators own their future. A place where fans have a voice. A place where watching something you love isn’t just entertainment. It’s participation.

What’s Next?

The tools are here. The audience is ready. The only thing left is for more creators, and more visionaries, to take the leap.

In future posts, we’ll explore how this approach overlaps with the creator economy, how we fix the user experience in Web3, and why mainstream adoption might be closer than we think.

But for now, I’ll leave you with this:

The future of film doesn’t belong to platforms. It belongs to people.

Most people think streaming changed everything. It did, just not in the way we hoped.

If anything, the story of film and TV over the past hundred years is a story of control. It’s about who gets to fund the work, who gets to distribute it, who makes money from it, and who doesn’t. The technology keeps evolving, but the power structures? They’ve remained surprisingly constant. 

And today, they’re more concentrated than ever.

To understand what needs to change, and how blockchain might actually offer a better path forward, we need to rewind. Because the system we’re living with today is just the latest version of a long-standing pattern.

The Studio Era: When One Company Owned It All

In the early 1900s, Hollywood’s original powerhouses, MGM, Warner Bros., Paramount, controlled everything. They owned the production studios, they owned the distribution pipelines, and they even owned the theaters where audiences watched the films.

This setup, known as vertical integration, was efficient. It let the studios scale quickly, pump out movies, and dominate the market. But it also locked out independent voices. If you weren’t inside the system, your film didn’t get made. Or if it did, it didn’t get seen.

It wasn’t just a business model, it was a gatekeeping machine.

The Paramount Decree: A Window Opens

Then came a shake-up. In 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the studios in what’s now known as the Paramount Decree. It forced them to sell off their theater chains, breaking the full-stack control they had over film.

The result? A wave of independent filmmakers stepped into the space. Studios shifted focus toward production and away from distribution. For a few decades, there was real creative breathing room. If you had a great idea and a small team, you could build something.

It didn’t last.

The Conglomerates Strike Back

Starting in the 1980s, major media companies, Disney, Time Warner, NBCUniversal, Viacom, started consolidating again. This time, the control came through different layers: cable channels, home video rights, syndication, and eventually global TV networks.

They didn’t need to own the theaters anymore. They were the pipeline.

By the 2000s, most people were consuming media that flowed through just a handful of corporations. Creative decisions were increasingly tied to shareholder value, not audience needs, and certainly not creator equity.

Streaming: Revolution or Reinvention?

Then came the streaming era. Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Disney+, massive platforms with global reach, direct-to-consumer models, and vast data infrastructures.

At first, it felt like freedom. No more cable boxes. No more gatekeepers. But we quickly learned something else: in streaming, the real power isn’t just in distribution, it’s in the data.

Today, creators often have no idea how their content is performing. Viewership numbers, engagement metrics, even basic revenue attribution, it’s all locked behind closed doors. You can’t negotiate a better deal when you don’t even know how your last show performed.

And it’s not just about money. Data shapes the creative process itself. Algorithms decide what gets promoted, what gets buried, what gets greenlit.

We’ve gone from studio execs in boardrooms to opaque machine-learning models that no one outside the platform controls. Different tools. Same outcome.

And What About the Audience?

Here’s the kicker: through all these evolutions, the audience, the people who fund this entire ecosystem through subscriptions, ticket sales, and attention, have always been treated as passive consumers.

They’ve had no say in what gets made, no access to ownership, and no meaningful connection with the creators they support.

That’s not just a missed opportunity. It’s a broken model. Because today’s fans want more than a like button. They want a stake.

What Happens Next?

We’re standing at a crossroads. The infrastructure has changed, but the power dynamics haven’t. And that’s where things get interesting.

Because for the first time in a century, we’re not just shifting who controls the system, we have the chance to rebuild it entirely.

In Part 2, I’ll explore what that actually looks like, and how blockchain, transparency, and community-driven platforms can give creators and audiences the power they’ve always deserved.

Stay tuned.

Coming back from TOKEN2049 in Dubai, I left inspired, but also more resolute than ever.

Because alongside the progress and passion, the same two questions kept cropping up in every hallway conversation, investor meeting, and off-the-record huddle:

• Why is there still so much corruption in a space that was designed to eliminate it?
• Where are the apps that actually onboard everyday users, not just the same million Web3 wallets, but billions of people?
  

They’re uncomfortable questions. But they matter more than ever.

The Corruption We Built Tools to Prevent!

The first question hit close to home. I have recently, faced two legal battles in recent months, both tied to projects that attempted to rewrite the rules post-launch, effectively defrauding their own investors. It’s draining. But it also exposes a deeper truth: blockchain doesn’t automatically create fairness, people do.

And it’s not just me. I spoke with founders who were ghosted after token raises, advisors who watched their terms get rewritten mid-vest, and dev teams cut out of upside because the “new roadmap” didn’t need them anymore. Even some of the industry’s most respected projects have quietly adjusted vesting terms, because they could.

That’s not decentralization. That’s a digital Wild West in a tailored blazer.

Where Are the Consumers?

The second question is just as frustrating. For all our tech, all our capital, and all our launches… where are the users?

Take OpenSea. At its peak, it touched nearly 1 million wallets a month. Today? That number has dropped significantly.

One million wallets sounds like a lot, until you realize that TikTok has over 1 billion monthly users, and even a middling mobile game can break 10 million.

The brutal truth is that most crypto apps are still built for crypto people. Interfaces are clunky. Onboarding is jargon-heavy. And real utility is often buried beneath tokenomics.

Until we build things that are intuitive, rewarding, and fun, the average user just isn’t going to care.

So What Do We Do?

For us at Rewarded TV, these conversations confirmed what we already believed:

• If we want mainstream adoption, we need to meet people where they already are, not where we wish they were.
• People watch content.
• People want to support creators.
• People like getting rewarded for their time and attention.

That’s where we’ve planted our flag.

We’re building an ecosystem that makes it effortless for viewers to engage and earn, and for creators to own and distribute without gatekeepers. 

No crypto jargon. No complex setup. Just open access and fair rewards, built on-chain.

We’re not here to talk about “fixing Web3.”

We’re here to build something better, with blockchain as the enabler, not the headline.

What Comes Next?

I’m optimistic. Because while corruption lingers, it’s also being called out more loudly. And while most dApps still aren’t hitting scale, the demand for better, consumer-grade experiences has never been clearer.

If TOKEN2049 proved anything, it’s that we’re at a turning point.

Let’s not waste it.

By Michael Jelen, CEO of Rewarded TV