The Passion Economy
Is it the “Future of Work”?
👋 Hello friends,
Thank you for joining this week's edition of Brainwaves. I'm Drew Jackson, and today we're exploring:
The Passion Economy: A 21st Century Addition
Key Question: Is it actually possible to “pursue your passions” as so many of us have been led to believe?
Thesis: The development of new social media and passion-focused platforms has ushered in a new segment of the economy, based around individuals’ passions. What used to be a formalized segregation between creativity and productivity is now combining, with millions of individuals making a full-time living from the pursuit of their passions.
Credit Luis Juarez
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Time to Read: 10 minutes.
Let’s dive in!
If your parents were like mine, you often heard the phrase “follow your passion.” Frequently, this was given more as a utopian viewpoint of your career, encouraging people to pursue career paths that aligned with their interests and beliefs. For most, unfortunately, those passions couldn’t effectively pay the bills, so the attempt to follow any passions was repeatedly abandoned.
However, now in the 21st century, this can more easily become a reality. For instance, the top-earning writer on Substack earns over $500,000 a year, and the top creator on Podia makes over $100,000 a month. Not to mention, there are many famous gamers, streamers, and YouTubers who make astronomical amounts of money “pursuing their passions.”
They are emboldened by a new channel of work, one that, it is argued, will come to majorly represent the 21st century.
Credit LinkedIn
The Passion Economy
In the 1970s, the early configurations of online communities were in the form of Bulletin Board Systems, where users could dial into a computer system and communicate via message boards, share files, and engage in text-based conversations. Subsequent developments included the use of global discussion forums like Usenet in the 80s and popular services like CompuServe, AOL, and Prodigy in the late 80s and 90s.
The first true social media platform was arguably Six Degrees, launched in 1997. It was named after the “six degrees of separation” theory, which posits that everyone is connected through a maximum of six social connections.
Six Degrees was the first platform to allow users to create profiles, add friends, and connect with others online. Despite its innovation, Six Degrees struggled to gain widespread adoption and ultimately shut down due to financial difficulties.
Six Degrees was followed over the next couple of years by popular influential platforms we’re familiar with today:
LinkedIn (2003)
MySpace (2003)
Facebook (2004)
YouTube (2005)
Twitter (2006)
Instagram (2010)
Snapchat (2011)
TikTok (2016)
The developments of these incredibly large social media platforms, which have come into fruition over the last two decades, have led to the emergence of what people in the 21st century have dubbed “The Passion Economy.”
The Passion Economy, aptly named, refers to a new way for individuals to monetize their skills through the pursuit of their passions.
Over the last decade or two, what society now considers a “job” has changed dramatically. The rise of companies like Uber, Doordash, and Fiverr has allowed people to monetize their time using flexible services like transport, food delivery, and graphic design.
On-demand marketplaces established turnkey ways for people to make money as workers could easily monetize their time. These platforms were convenient for both the users and the provider, automating the matching of supply and demand, enabling thousands to be self-employed.
The “gig economy,” as it was labeled, resulted in massive productivity gains and huge consumer surplus. Cabs, food delivery, grocery shopping, and other gigs represented crucial aspects of our day-to-day life, elevated by technological platforms and venture capital funding.
However, this was just the first step in the deployment of the new age economy. In the career paths described above (Uber, etc.), people were promised the ability to “become their own bosses.” In reality, they were just freelancers tied to a time card (not a truly revolutionary feat).
The reaction to this fact led to the development of new digital platforms (listed above), platforms that emphasized users’ individuality and creativity. As Dan Harvey writes, “these platforms let users earn money in a way that highlights and celebrates their individual skills and personality instead of squashing them.”
It was through this that the passion economy was born: people wanted a way to make money by doing something they are passionate about.
A recent Andreessen Horowitz article on the subject offers the following comparison of the gig economy and the passion economy:
Monetization Model:
The Gig Economy: One-time revenue: pay per trip, per session, etc.
The Passion Economy: Ongoing revenue based on building an audience
Services Offered:
The Gig Economy: Narrow, commoditized services
The Passion Economy: A wide variety of creative products and services
Software Stack:
The Gig Economy: On-demand platforms that commoditize providers
The Passion Economy: Marketplaces that emphasize the individuality of providers
Relationship Between Consumer and Provider:
The Gig Economy: Limited ability for consumer engagement
The Passion Economy: Platforms encourage direct interaction and loyalty between the service provider and consumer
Levers for Growing the Business:
The Gig Economy: Doing more: more time spent, miles driven, jobs completed, etc.
The Passion Economy: Expanding audience and offering a differentiated service or product
Credit LinkedIn
Welcome to The Passion Economy!
The passion economy ushered in a shift to a new model of entrepreneurship, which has subsequently characterized the 21st century.
For the longest time, creativity and productivity were two ends of the paradigm. Those who wanted to pursue creative fields found it hard to make ends meet. It’s no surprise that some of the lowest-paying college majors were in the arts and creativity sectors. Now, the opportunities are expanding dramatically.
In 2025, it’s estimated that ~50M people worldwide consider themselves part of this passion economy, engaging in their passions full-time. These people are, for the most part, doing what they love to do and finding new ways to earn a living from it.
These full-time participants follow and make up some of the core characteristics of the passion economy:
1) Individuality and Specialization: It’s about monetizing what makes people unique, their specific expertise, hobbies, personal experiences, or unique perspectives.
2) Direct-to-Audience/Customer Model: Creators in the passion economy often bypass traditional gatekeepers (publishers, record labels, employers) and connect directly with their audience or customers.
3) Leveraging Digital Platforms: Key digital platforms provide the infrastructure for individuals to build and scale their ventures.
4) Niche Focus: Success often comes from serving a highly engaged, specific niche audience rather than trying to appeal to the masses.
5) Scalability and Passive Income Potential: Unlike trading time for money in the gig economy, the passion economy allows for more scalable models. A single piece of content can be sold repeatedly or viewed repeatedly, generating passive income after the initial creation.
6) Emphasis on Community and Relationships: Building a loyal community around the shared passion is crucial to success. This can foster engagement, provide direct feedback, and lead to sustained revenue.
7) Autonomy and Flexibility: Individuals in the passion economy typically have greater control over their work, hours, and creative direction, appealing to those seeking more purpose and freedom in their careers.
Credit LinkedIn
New platforms are critical to the passion economy
Members of the passion economy and their associated businesses (passionate ventures) rely on new-age platforms that provide many benefits. These platforms have a few key characteristics that Li Jin describes in their article (summarized by Gemini):
1) They’re accessible to everyone, not only existing businesses and professionals
The rise of the passion economy means that entrepreneurship is no longer limited to established businesses or professionals. New consumer-friendly products and no-code tools are democratizing the ability to create and launch businesses. What was once only accessible to large companies with software engineering talent, like building websites and apps, can now be done by anyone using platforms such as Webflow and Glide. This shift allows everyday individuals to monetize their creative skills and build their own ventures, opening up opportunities for companies to support these emerging entrepreneurs from their early stages and grow with them.
2) They view individuality as a feature, not a bug
Unlike older service marketplaces that standardized jobs, new platforms in the passion economy highlight and celebrate the unique individuality of creators. They view diverse backgrounds, experiences, and approaches as valuable features. For instance, platforms like Outschool emphasize each teacher's distinct background and teaching style, allowing parents and students to choose based on personal preferences. While there's a risk of creators taking relationships offline, platforms can mitigate this by offering integrated workflow tools (like scheduling and invoicing) and continuous incentives, ensuring both creators and users benefit from staying within the platform's ecosystem.
3) They focus on digital products and virtual services
The passion economy marks a significant shift from platforms primarily focused on physical products or in-person services to a strong emphasis on digital products and virtual services. New platforms like Podia, Teachable, and Thinkific are specifically designed to help creators package and sell online courses and digital memberships. This allows experts to monetize their knowledge and skills beyond geographical limitations, reaching a global audience without needing physical classrooms or in-person consultations. Similarly, services like virtual interior design offered by Havenly demonstrate how expertise can be delivered entirely online, providing convenience and accessibility for both providers and clients.
4) They provide holistic tools to grow and operate a business
Unlike traditional marketplaces that might only focus on discovery, new creator platforms provide holistic tools designed to help entrepreneurs grow and manage their businesses. Many of these platforms are monetized through Software as a Service (SaaS) fees or a percentage of earnings, directly incentivizing them to support creator success and long-term growth rather than just facilitating one-time transactions. This support often includes marketing tools like custom landing pages and affiliate programs, as well as backend assistance such as coaching or even bundled operational support, like curriculum and regulatory guidance for new businesses.
5) They open doors to new forms of work entirely
The innovation in digital platforms is enabling entirely new forms of work that were previously unimaginable. These platforms create novel ways for individuals to monetize their skills and content beyond traditional employment or even existing freelance models. For example, in China, microblogging sites like Weibo allow users to sell exclusive content, Q&As, and private chat group memberships. This has broadened the definition of "influencer" to include financial advisors, professors, and niche experts, demonstrating how the passion economy can unlock diverse and unprecedented avenues for generating income and engaging with an audience.
Credit Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design
Is it true that the passion economy is the “future of work?”
Massive 21st-century developments, such as automation, globalization, the internet, and now artificial intelligence, have each fundamentally changed the way we view work. Especially now in 2025, many are beginning to see that the concept of a “steady” job is slowly disappearing. Lower-skilled jobs are being quickly eliminated due to automation and artificial intelligence.
For many, the classic 9-to-5 that previous generations lived by is fleeting. People want flexibility, freedom, and purpose from their jobs. The World Economic Forum describes these trends as follows:
Gen Z creators, influencers and investors are making different career choices than their parents. There is a subtle shift in what they learn, how they learn and how they earn. They do not see creativity and productivity as two different things. Both are part of the new creator stack that is emerging in the third era of the internet which is often called Web 3.0, a distributed, decentralized internet.
Now, children growing up primarily want to become members of the passion economy: influencers, YouTubers, and more. For kids, growing up to become an online creator is 2x as popular as being a movie star and 3x as popular as being an astronaut.
Due to these facts and its growing popularity, some business leaders have proposed that the passion economy will be “the future of work.”
The “future of work” is dramatically changing. Even now, the World Economic Forum estimates that 85% of the jobs in 2030 don’t even exist today, likely arising out of passionate pursuits and other creative channels.
Besides entering wholeheartedly into this “future of work” through the complete adoption of the passion economy (those ~50M participants thus far), there are countless others (probably billions of people in 2025) who help support and participate in the passion economy, whether they know it or not.
For instance, this would include anyone who actively participates in social media (through liking, commenting, posting, sharing, etc.), creationist platforms (by posting videos on YouTube, livestreaming on Twitch, etc.), and other passion economy functions.
To add some numbers to this claim, in 2025, YouTube was estimated to have around 2.5B monthly active users (this would amount to around 47% of global internet users accessing YouTube monthly). Similarly, Instagram boasts around 2B monthly active users globally.
Globally, it’s estimated that people spend around 2.5 hrs a day on social media, scrolling through and participating in various platforms. As such, given the vast number of users and the extensive time of use, it’s not surprising that the passion economy is as large as it is.
So, to say that the passion economy only includes the ~50M direct participants who have abandoned most of their other prospects (traditional 9-5 full-time employment, etc.) to engage in producing passionate work for a living is a naive proposition.
As more and more participants continue to transition into the passion economy, platforms, sponsorships, and knowledge about this area of the economy will only expand.
At some point, we might transition into a majorly, if not entirely, passion-based economy. A form of this world is portrayed by the movie Ready Player One, a society that is dominated by life in a video game (wherein everyone is a creator, a passionate player).
Credit Harvard Business School
A New Chapter: The Passion Economy
To be clear, the career playbook that worked for our parents and our parents’ parents still majorly works today. You can still be a lawyer, a doctor, a policeman, or even an astronaut. The new generation has simply added a new chapter to this playbook: entering the passion economy.
We’re in a time where anyone can be an “influencer” or a “content creator.” To be clear, this phenomenon isn’t exclusive just for Gen Z or Gen Alpha members. For instance, there has been a large rise in suburban blogger moms (as pictured by Anna Kendrick in A Simple Favor).
The accessibility provided by modern platforms, the celebration of individual expression, and the focus on virtual products and services have collectively opened up entirely novel forms of work.
What was once seen as a strict dichotomy between creativity and productivity is now merging, with a growing number of individuals now making a full-time living from their true passions.
As automation and artificial intelligence continue to reshape traditional job markets, the desire for autonomy, flexibility, and purpose in work is accelerating the adoption of the Passion Economy.
The Passion Economy is not just a fleeting trend; it represents a significant new chapter in the history of work, offering a vibrant, dynamic, and ever-expanding landscape where passion can indeed be profitable.
While traditional careers endure, the digital age has added a powerful new pathway, inviting everyone to build a livelihood around what they truly love to do.
That’s all for today. I’ll be back in your inbox on Saturday with The Saturday Morning Newsletter.
Thanks for reading,
Drew Jackson
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