App-lause

Throughout the human story, the act of rewarding service or talent – through tips, gifts, or patronage – has always been about more than money. It’s a signal of belonging, a reinforcement of the social hierarchy, and a way of making the intangible tangible. 

Today’s creator economy, set to top $480bn by 2027, is simply the latest to leverage this long tradition. Applause now exists online as Twitch bits, TikTok roses, and YouTube ‘super thanks’, with patronage of the arts and performance democratised across millions of micro-gestures. This disintermediation means bedroom streamers across the globe can be sustained directly by their audience, one tip at a time, without the support of a guild, gallery, or record label. 

On OnlyFans, in FY2024, fans spent about $7.2bn on the platform, with $5.8bn paid out to creators who keep 80%. It also saw user/creator counts rising to roughly 377.5m fans and 4.6m creators. Alternatively, Substack routes applause through recurring reader subscriptions. Writers keep ownership of their lists, but pay a 10% platform fee plus Stripe processing on each transaction. The service has now surpassed five million paid subscriptions, turning reader esteem into a steady paycheque and enabling leading commentators to break away from traditional media organisations and create their own.

And yet, even as creators sidestep traditional gatekeepers, new ones are emerging. Platforms have inserted themselves as the new middlemen, taking their cut. The applause economy may be more democratic than ever, but it is also being consolidated at the top.

Deals, deals, deals

Applause, it turns out, scales wonderfully. Once the preserve of nobles and hat-passers, it’s now a financial asset class all its own. Private equity firms and global media conglomerates are racing to scoop up platforms where applause is being monetised.

‍In the first half of 2025 alone, there were 52 mergers and acquisitions across the creator economy, already matching the total deal volume of 2023 and surging 73% over 2024 figures. 

In January 2025, Summit Partners backed Later’s $250 million acquisition of Mavely, expanding a marketing suite designed to funnel fan attention into sales. And a month later, in February 2025, PSG Equity put $150 million into Uscreen, a subscription video platform that allows creators to monetise directly. Global ad giant Publicis bought influencer platform Captiv8 and Brazilian network BR Media in May 2025. Whalar, an influencer marketing firm, acquired the Business of Creativity media brand for $20 million, also in May 2025.

This wave of dealmaking is building out the rails that transform gestures such as likes, tips, and gifts into revenue. Every rose on TikTok, every Twitch bit, every YouTube 'super thanks' is a few pennies at most in isolation. But at scale, the aggregation of these small gestures becomes steady cashflow.

Advertising is cyclical, dependent on consumer sentiment and marketing budgets. Virality is increasingly a lifeline for smaller consumer brands, but the secret sauce of what makes an ad go viral is still largely unpredictable. Tipping, gifting, and microtransactions are powered by something older and stickier. People will always pay to belong, to be seen, and to participate. To own the rails of applause today is to hold the digital equivalent of prime ad inventory in the broadcast era, or the box office in Hollywood’s golden age.

Let the gouging begin!

In July, gaming giant Ubisoft declared in its annual report that microtransactions “make the player experience more fun”. The claim referred to in-game purchases in titles like Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Things like armour sets, weapon upgrades, and cosmetics. This is despite the game’s premium price tag.

For years, gamer communities have accused publishers of muscling in on experiences and forcing players to cough up twice. Microtransactions are seen as gouging, a strategy preying on sunk-cost psychology and status signalling, encouraging players to spend to keep up with the Joneses.

Yet from a financial perspective, Ubisoft isn’t entirely wrong. Microtransactions are predictable, high-margin, and sticky. They’re the gaming industry’s version of applause, with players buying recognition, identity, and prestige in digital form. Cosmetics aren’t necessary for the game, but they’re necessary for visibility within it. And that is what platforms and publishers have learned to monetise.

Shaping behaviours

A 2025 UCLA Anderson study found that tipping design matters. When contributions are hidden, people tip more often (though in smaller amounts), boosting overall revenue by nearly 39%. Public tips, by contrast, spur larger one-off gestures, but fewer of them.

On Twitch, gift subscriptions have a measurable contagion effect. Recipients are more likely to ‘pay it forward’, creating generosity loops that sustain streaming communities. But the effect is dampened when gifts are frequent or anonymous, which perhaps shows that recognition, as well as altruism, powers reciprocity.

China’s WeChat ‘red packets’ system shows the same behaviour in miniature. A 2019 study found that recipients of tiny virtual gifts sent back an average of 18 cents within 24 hours, evidence of gift contagion and the human need to reciprocate.

Biometric or default tipping could soon take one-tap gifting technology even further. An algorithm prompting a nudge to applaud when you linger on a stream too long, or a headset registering your laughter and turning it into an automatic micro-gift, perhaps. 

Platforms are unlikely to resist this development. If ad revenue was the fuel of Web 2.0, micro-patronage may become the cash cow of Web 3.0. Expect more consolidation, higher take-rates, and increasingly gamified applause mechanics. Social network Zora’s experiment with tokenised tipping is an early signal. Applause doesn’t just buy recognition anymore, it can become a speculative instrument in its own right. Fans might soon treat their favourite creator less like an artist to be applauded and more like stock to be held.

This frictionless, algorithmic future is not without risk. Tip fatigue is very real. If every interaction carries a price, audiences may bristle at the creeping etiquette of compulsory generosity. Regulators, too, may weigh in, especially if the line between tipping and investing continues to blur. There’s a danger that applause becomes less a joyful affirmation and more a hidden tax on digital life.

Standing ovation

Long before the internet, societies have always had rituals of gratuity and patronage, tiny payments or grand commissions, that tethered esteem to money. 

Medieval troubadours and minstrels were rewarded with gifts of food, clothing, or coin, their performances sustained by the generosity of nobility. In Shakespeare’s London, the ‘groundlings’ at the Globe paid a penny each for entry and often signalled approval with small payments, an early form of crowdfunding the stage. By the 19th century, Paris and Milan opera houses employed professional claqueurs, hired hands who clapped on cue to manufacture ovations.

History shows that applause has always been tethered to money. What’s changed is the scale. Where once a handful of nobles bankrolled geniuses, today millions of patrons keep creators afloat.

The paradox is that although this trend feels democratic, it is quietly facing increasing centralisation. Disintermediation gave creators a direct line to their fans, but consolidation has placed new toll booths in between. Platforms are skimming every clap and making bank.

Applause has never been free, but in the digital age it has been engineered and converted into predictable cashflows. The question isn’t whether people will keep clapping, but who gets paid when they do. After all, every ovation has an audience, a performer, and a collector at the door.

‍

Important Information