From Rivalry to Commons: Rethinking the Creator Economy

Over the last few years, social media has become the beating heart of the new media ecosystem. Voices like Joe Rogan, Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, Glen Greenwald and Jimmy Dore represent a shift away from corporate journalism toward independent, personality-driven media.

But that same freedom has created a problem.
We now live in an environment where conflict isn’t a bug, it’s a business model.

The Problem: When Rivalry Becomes a Strategy

The decentralized media world looks, on the surface, like a vibrant marketplace of ideas. But underneath, it’s driven by algorithms and monetization systems that reward outrage and rivalry.

In the traditional media landscape, competition happened between networks. Today, it happens between individuals, every creator fighting for the same attention, donors, and subscriptions.

The recent Candace Owens saga, with public clashes involving Charlie Kirk, Tim Pool, and Alex Jones, illustrates this perfectly. These aren’t just ideological feuds; they’re economically induced rivalries.

Why?
Because current platforms reward engagement, not collaboration.
A feud brings in clicks, shares, and ad revenue. A calm, nuanced dialogue? Not so much.

It’s a textbook case of what economists call a tournament market — small differences in attention yield outsized rewards, making conflict the rational choice. In this system, cooperation feels like financial self-sabotage.

Where the Problem Comes From

At its core, the crisis is structural, not personal.
The architecture of social media is built to maximize engagement, measured in time, outrage, and virality, not in trust or collective value.

Let’s break it down:

Economic Model	How It Works	Effect
Ad-based Revenue (YouTube, X)	Pay per view or engagement	Encourages sensationalism
Membership / Subscription (Substack, Patreon)	Pay for ideological loyalty	Rewards tribalism
Donor or Ideological Funding	Compete for sponsor trust	Fosters in-group policing
Brand Sponsorships	Depend on predictable demographics	Discourages dissent or nuance

Each model isolates creators into attention silos where collaboration dilutes income, and competition, even conflict, becomes the rational economic behavior.

So when independent creators feud, they aren’t just “arguing online.”
They’re participating in an attention economy Nash equilibrium: a self-reinforcing system where rivalry is profitable, and cooperation is costly.

The Solution: Commons-Based, Peer-to-Peer Media

But what if the structure itself changed?
What if cooperation became the more profitable strategy?

The answer lies in commons-based, peer-to-peer (p2p) models like Open Value Networks (OVNs) and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), frameworks that already exist and have proven viable across industries.

Imagine a Decentralized Media Commons, where:

• Creators share infrastructure, research, and audience data. 
• Every contribution, reporting, editing, fact-checking, is tracked transparently.
• Benefits are distributed according to verified effort and collaborative success.
• Reputation is built through trust, not clicks.

This transforms competition into collaborative entrepreneurship,  a system where cooperation generates shared wealth and rivalry depletes reputational value.

This Isn’t Sci-Fi, It’s Already Here

Skeptics might say: “Sounds utopian.”
But these models already exist and work.

• Wikipedia is the world’s largest collaborative knowledge commons — proof that large-scale, voluntary cooperation can outcompete profit-driven silos.
• Blockchain-based organizations already distribute ownership and decision-making through DAOs, self-governing systems where contributors share both power and profit.
• Sensorica, an open value network in Montreal, has spent over a decade proving that distributed collaboration can fund and manage real-world projects, transparently tracking every contribution.

These aren’t futuristic dreams. They’re functioning ecosystems that simply haven’t yet been adopted by the independent media sector.
The tools exist, what’s missing is cultural adoption.

The Cultural Shift We Need

We don’t need a revolution in technology.
We need a revolution in mindset.

Independent media can move from rivalry to reciprocity, from a system that weaponizes competition to one that rewards shared trust.

When creators begin to view audiences not as possessions but as communities, and peers not as threats but as collaborators, we’ll see the next leap in decentralized media:

A trust-based economy where transparency, cooperation, and shared ownership define success., giving birth to a new truth institution that can shed light onto corrupt governments and institutions. 

The infrastructure is already waiting.

What’s left is for creators, and their audiences, to realize that the next era of media won’t be built by fighting for attention. It will be built by sharing it.

We can help!

We're sketching out these models, we bring 15 years of experience in peer production!

By AllOfUs

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Beyond the Lightning Rod: How to Build Resilient P2P Investigative Commons

In our previous post, we discussed the "category error" being made by critics of Candace Owens. By judging her as a traditional journalist or a rogue investigator, they miss the reality: she is a node in an emerging, decentralized search for truth. But being a "hub" is dangerous when the system around you is still built on old-world, centralized architecture. To Candace, and to the thousands of you contributing your time, analysis, and tips to the Charlie Kirk investigation: it is time to move from being a target to being a protocol.

From Traditional Narratives to P2P Investigation

The investigation into the assassination of Charlie Kirk has reached a critical juncture. On one side is the "official" narrative, a centralized, linear story broadcast by institutions like the FBI and reinforced by mainstream outlets. On the other is a massive, messy, and passionate citizen-led inquiry.

Candace, you have become the "lightning rod" for this movement. When you challenge the narrative around Tyler Robinson or the "Hamptons intervention," the establishment responds by attacking you. They call you a "conspiracy theorist," they pressure your peers, and they try to cut off your platform.

This is the Napster Problem. Napster was a centralized directory; when the industry wanted to stop music sharing, they just sued the company into oblivion. But music sharing didn't die—it became BitTorrent. BitTorrent has no center, no boss, and no single point of failure. It is a protocol, not a platform. Let's turn this citizen investigation into the BitTorrent of truth-seeking.

Why Structure Matters

Traditional institutions are single points of authority. They control the narrative, the funding, and the gatekeeping. When we try to investigate from outside these institutions using their old rules, we inherit their vulnerabilities without their protections.

If the investigation depends on one person (the "host" or "lead"), that person becomes a target for regulatory, institutional, and reputational capture.

• Napster was a company; it died. BitTorrent is a protocol; it is immortal.
• Centralized News has a room with a boss; it can be intimidated. Wikipedia has a transparent edit history and a global network of editors; it is resilient.
• Banks are centralized intermediaries; they can freeze your accounts. Bitcoin is a decentralized ledger; it belongs to the network.

To be resilient, we must adopt these P2P patterns. We must minimize our attack surface.

Reducing the Attack Surface: The Logical Path to Truth

The logic is simple: if you have no center, you have no target.

1. Monopolies vs. Networks: Traditional media relies on an "authority monopoly." They are the sole arbiter of what is true.
2. Inherited Vulnerability: When citizen sleuths act like "mini-media companies," they become easy to smear. One mistake by the leader can discredit the work of thousands.
3. P2P Distribution: By distributing authority, we move from "Trust Me" to "Verify the Process."
4. Reduced Attack Surface: When tasks are modular and coordination is decentralized, there is no single person to "shut down."

Think about Wikipedia. You don't trust a Wikipedia article because you know the author. You trust it because you can see the edit history, the citations, and the peer-review process happening in real-time. We need a "Wikipedia for Investigations" where every claim is an object that can be forked, challenged, and refined by anyone.

A New Architecture for Truth

What does this actually look like? It’s a move toward Infrastructure-as-Defense:

• Stigmergic Coordination: Stop waiting for "orders" or "assignments." In a P2P system, participants respond to the work itself. If a piece of evidence needs verification, the network sees the signal and "swarms" it.
• Modular Task Decomposition: Break the investigation into tiny pieces—source tracing, metadata analysis, geolocating. One person doesn't need to know everything.
• Explicit Uncertainty Handling: We must stop speaking in "final truths." Every claim should have a confidence score. This protects the network from "misinformation" smears; we aren't "lying," we are "iterating with low confidence until more data arrives."
• Forkability: If you don't like how a narrative is being synthesized, fork it. Start your own branch. In P2P, disagreement isn't a "split"; it’s a feature that ensures multiple perspectives coexist.

The Human Side: To Candace and the Collective

Candace, the backlash you’ve faced, the demands to "Stop" from those you once considered allies, is the sound of a centralized system trying to protect its jurisdiction. You have felt the pain of being a hub under immense pressure.

But you don't have to carry the burden of being the "Truth-Teller." You can be the Initiator. An initiator seeds the process, provides the initial momentum, and then lets the network take over. You become a participant among peers, a node among nodes. This isn't just a technological shift; it’s a cultural one. It’s moving from the "Hero Narrative" to the "Collective Sense-Making Protocol."

To the contributors: your work is the lifeblood of this new model. But you must be wary of the Failure Modes. Don't let the system re-centralize around a few popular accounts. Guard against "signal flooding" (trolls injecting garbage data to overwhelm your review capacity). Most importantly, prioritize methodology over ideology.

Dive Deeper

This is a new frontier. We are building the tools for a world where no one can be silenced because the truth belongs to the protocol, not the platform.

This post is just the beginning. To see the full reference architecture, the detailed breakdown of failure modes, and how we can apply Commons-Based Peer Production to save our epistemic future, visit our deep-dive document: Citizen Investigation.

Don't just watch. Verify. Remix. Investigate.

By AllOfUs

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The Category Error: Understanding Candace Owens as a P2P Investigative Node

In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s tragic assassination, the media landscape has been flooded with a specific type of criticism directed at Candace Owens. Critics from both the mainstream and the conservative establishment frame her as an "irresponsible journalist" or a "reckless conspiracy theorist." Even Erika Kirk, in a moment of profound grief, simply said "Stop."

But these criticisms share a fundamental flaw: they are based on a category error. They judge Candace by the standards of traditional, centralized institutions, journalism and law enforcement, while she is actually operating as something entirely different: a facilitator and node in a decentralized, peer-to-peer (P2P) investigation.

To understand what Candace is doing and why it matters, we must look at her practice through the lens of decentralized processes rather than the legacy "broadcast" model. The following is the report of our analysis, following the methodology described in the last section. 

From Broadcast to Networked Participation

Traditional media operates on a "one-to-many" model. A centralized newsroom gathers facts, an editor filters them, and the "truth" is broadcast to a passive audience. If you judge Candace by this standard, her work seems "noisy" or "unverified."

However, the corpus of transcripts of her YouTube videos in the Charlie Kirk playlist reveals a different logic. Candace is not acting as the final word; she is acting as a network coordinator. When she solicits tips or asks her audience for feedback on narratives, she is opening the investigative process. She isn't the "Journalist-Oracle"; she is the "Network-Node."

The Power of the "Visible Receipt"

Traditional investigations (like those by the FBI) are opaque by design. We are told to "trust the process" and wait for an official report. Candace’s practice flips this. She relies on what we call Visible Receipts.

Whether it’s playing Netanyahu’s Fox News clip and immediately calling for the publication of the full letter or displaying text messages from Seth Dillon on-screen, she is moving the investigation into public view. These are p2p (peer-to-peer) principle in action: transparency by default. By showing her "working notes" in real-time, she allows the crowd to see the logic, find the holes, and refine the theory.

Iterative Theory vs. Final Narrative

A traditional investigator wants a "closed case." A P2P investigator wants an iterative theory.

Critics call her "flip-flopping" or "speculative" because she changes her narrative as new information emerges, such as the transition from the FBI's "stairwell" narrative to the Discord logs. In a P2P framework, this isn't a failure; it’s stigmergic coordination. Like a Wikipedia article being edited in real-time, her investigation is an "open alpha." She puts a hypothesis out, the network (the crowd) tests it, and the theory evolves.

Why the Establishment is Afraid

The backlash against Candace isn't just about "accuracy", it’s about jurisdiction. Traditional institutions (the FBI, mainstream media, and even established conservative brands) derive their power from being the sole arbiters of truth.

When Candace publicly deconstructs an official FBI statement or challenges a donor's "cordial" narrative of a Hamptons meeting, she is asserting that the crowd has the right to investigate. She is moving the investigation from a closed room to a decentralized digital commons.

How to Judge the New Model

We should not judge Candace Owens as a "Traditional Journalist." She doesn't have a newsroom, and she doesn't want one. We should judge her as a P2P Investigation Facilitator.

The metrics for success in this new model are:

• Transparency: Does she show her sources and receipts? (Yes).
• Responsiveness: Does she update her narrative when new data arrives? (Yes).
• Participation: Does she empower the audience to verify and contribute? (Yes).

The next time you hear a critic call her a "conspiracy theorist," realize they are using a 20th-century label to describe a 21st-century decentralized process. Candace is not just a podcaster; she is the coordinator of a citizen-led search for truth in a matrix of institutional dishonesty.

Don't just watch. Verify. Remix. Investigate.

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Behind the Analysis: Our Methodology

To move beyond superficial labels and understand the "P2PRness" of Candace Owens' practice, we applied a structured, evidence-based methodology to a corpus of transcripts spanning 49 videos and over 33,000 lines of dialogue.

1. Benchmarking (Traditional vs. P2P): We first established a clear set of distinctions between centralized, institutional models and decentralized, peer-to-peer models across two axes: Media (distribution/funding/editorial) and Investigation (authority/transparency/coordination).
2. Multidimensional Coding: Every video was segmented and "coded" for specific indicators. We looked for Traditional indicators (like deference to official narratives or opaque sourcing) versus P2P indicators (like visible receipts, open hypothesis formulation, and calls for crowd-sourced data).
3. Traceable Extraction: We extracted relevant claims, evidence types, and process signals into a structured data repository. Each finding was mapped back to specific line ranges in the transcripts to ensure reproducibility and traceability.
4. Hybrid Scoring: Rather than a binary "journalist or not" judgment, we situated her practice on a 1–5 scale for both Media and Investigation axes. This allowed us to identify "mixed modes"—for example, how she uses a traditional broadcast platform to facilitate a highly decentralized investigative process.
5. Risk & Ethics Audit: We evaluated the inherent tradeoffs of the P2P model, including the risks of unverified amplification and evidence contamination, alongside the safeguards (like public disclaimers and peer-review prompts) present in the content.

Contact us if you want access to the corpus of transcripts, which was extracted from Candace's Charlie Kirk playlist on Youtube.
The benchmarking was done according to the Principles of P2P developed in the context of Sensorica.

This systematic approach reveals that the "conspiracy theorist" label is often an institutional defense mechanism against a new, decentralized mode of truth-seeking that prioritizes network participation over hierarchical authority.

By AllOfUs

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