Sean Everett breaks down the creator, consumer, and critic as three roles that balance each other. Creators make up about 10% of social media, consumers drive 70% of global GDP, and critics provide constructive feedback. Understanding all three perspectives helps you build better products faster and with less stress.
Chapters
3 things, the Holy Triumvirate: the creator, the consumer, and the critic. And they create a balance and check system. Oftentimes when you hear about balance and checks and judges and things like that, you're talking about adversarial. So one system or force keeps another system or force in balance. Right? So it doesn't completely go off the rails in one direction or another. They're, uh, it's like 2 balance points, but it's not very sturdy because while you could balance this way and stay level, it's also not 3-dimensional. So you could both tip over that way even though you're in balance. So what you really need is like 3. 3 is stronger than 2. And so that balancing point, which exists in the real world that we have today between the creator, the consumer, and the critic is stronger than just between 2 points. So why does this matter? Let's break each one down, um, in series. The creator— pretty obvious, everyone kind of knows what this one is. Uh, it's someone who makes something, or something that makes something with the advent of AI. Uh, So artists famously are creators, engineers, designers, like you name it. If you've written something down on a piece of paper, if you've had an idea in your head that's ever developed, you are a creator. The difference, and the reason there's only about 10% of people on social media that create content versus consume it, is that it's hard to create things. And so just by the very nature of you taking something from an idea in your head and like using it to create something more than once over time, the amount of people and entities that do that is small. And the more you do it, the smaller and smaller it gets until you're really just left with a handful of people in a specific domain that know how to do a certain thing. So it's rare by design. The consumer On the other hand, is the one who consumes the things that the creators create. And so that's that balance and check. Uh, that's why we call them consumers. Uh-huh. And it really does drive our economy. 70% of the global GDP, which is the value of all the final goods and services that are purchased in the world, um, is driven by consumers, not by businesses. So The consumer market, 8 billion humans on this planet, and soon— I mean, we've already dwarfed the number of human people with the number of machines and bots and agents, and it's going to continue going. But the consumer market dwarfs the business market. It's not as stable, though. So it rides trends, rides waves, right? So most of the stability in the consumer market is your consumer utilities. It's your electricity, it's your water, it's your food, it's that sort of thing. Oxygen, which humanity hasn't found a way to monetize yet. More about like space and real estate and nature, right? Like oxygen is free thanks to our planet here, one ecosystem. Okay, so that's 2, the creator and the consumer. What about the critic? The critic is interesting, and a lot of creators have a negative relationship with the critic because the critic holds them to account. And the critic is a consumer, ideally with taste. And so there's fewer of them. And it's, I noticed that the stitch on this came apart and it was uneven. And I noticed that your product fell apart after 5 uses. And so it's not as sturdy. Or You know, everyone else is doing this and we all really want this thing. Why haven't you given us this thing? And so a lot of super fans can sometimes transform into critics if tipped in the wrong direction. Um, haters are a form of critic, and that's a different energy though. It's an energy of, um, trying to tear down rather than raise up. So I think in the best situations, a critic will lift up and hold to account. Um, Walt Mossberg and Steve Jobs had more of that kind of relationship between the critic and the, uh, the creator. Um, and those were lightning rods, but it was from a point of respect and, uh, I really want you to do well, and I'm going to hold you account, but in a respectful way. So that, that is interesting because that's a data point from an independent view, and almost even a better view, because it's like, look, I love your stuff and your thing and you, maybe, but you let me down. And, and that one is a tough one for the creator. You got to go deep, because not only do you put yourself into your products, and so it's like anytime there's a criticism, it's like, damn, I did something you could never do, and then you're beating me up on this one percentage point thing. Like, F off. But I think in a moment of quiet or solitude or peace, you kind of come back around to like, man, you're right. Which gets back to some of our other videos where we talked about, as a creator in this handoff between design and engineering, if you don't fight for that thing that matters and you just sort of cave into that, and then the critic comes and holds you to account, That's a double regret because not only did you know about it and feel it and know something bad was going to happen, then you got called out on it. So you're like, man, so you gotta fight that good fight if it really does matter and it really does help. And then the critic will sing your praises rather than tear you down. And sometimes it's things you just completely missed, or like, look, our 80% we were trying to deliver, the last 20%, like, we couldn't get that done in this iteration. Like, we're gonna work on it and we're gonna get to like 85% of like your vision and 90% and 95%. We may never be able to get to that full 100% thing. Sometimes that's just not possible in the world we live in. We try, we approach it, can't always get there. So then what is the job of this holy triumvirate, this creator, the consumer, and the critic? And I think it's, it is a, it is a flywheel in some sense and a stronger balance and check. And if you can keep that ecosystem in a strong relationship, then it can move even faster because then it's in a positive space where it's like, oh, consumer says like, hey, we really want this thing. Creator's like, all right, we got to figure out a way, you know, the critics there. And so like the critic is, and the consumers are going to help you give that evidence to the rest of the group, the team, the providers, the suppliers to give you that energy to say, all right, we're going to go over this hump. We're going to fight this battle. It's going to hurt in the short term. And we're going to disappoint that demand in the short term to be longer-term brand correct and deliver what they want. So sometimes patience is a virtue. And in that point, you release it and the critic wins, the consumer wins, the creator wins. That gives you enough energy to keep going and keep doing it versus falling, right? So it's back to this, like, you need a backstop. And some of that backstop of belief is, no, we're going to do it the right way. We're going to wait until it's done to release it, not on some calendar or schedule. Because then what happens is the results go to the roof. So sometimes it can take months, years, even a decade to deliver that vision, to appease yourself as a creator, to appease the consumer, to appease the critic. And one person can be all 3. You can step into different perspectives and look at your own thing, other people's things, from those perspectives. And so Doing it with that respectful approach is the right way to give more energy and get everybody what they want faster, better, sometimes cheaper, less stress. It's more fun. And that's when we unlock something that feels more like play instead of work. All right, that's the intention for today. So, um, yeah, if you can become a creator, a critic, and a consumer all in one, man, you're winning. That's it. Have a great one.
