It is hard to overstate the impact of the content creation economy on the modern world. In the last decade, musicians, filmmakers, writers, podcasters, and influencers have transformed their passions into livelihoods. Big platforms like YouTube, Spotify, Instagram, and TikTok have become the new broadcast networks and publishing houses, promising anyone with talent and a smartphone the chance to reach a global audience.
The numbers are staggering. According to industry analysts, the global digital content creation market is worth on the order of tens of billions of dollars and is growing at a double-digit annual rate. Millions of new content creators have joined social media since 2020, with many even making it a full-time career. This digital gold rush has changed how people consume media, build communities, and even shape culture and politics.
However, a troubling reality persists.
The Platform Paradox: Who Really Profits?
Teklium’s Jason Ho explains why content platforms often overlook their creators. He says that while creators generate the content, platforms control the audience, the discovery process, and most of the revenue streams.
He notes that creators typically receive only between 5% and 30% of their content’s revenue on many major platforms. Ho adds that in extreme cases, some platforms take up to 95% of the value, leaving creators with just a fraction of what their work could be worth. He says the rest is absorbed by the platform in the form of commissions, infrastructure fees, and other opaque deductions.
He explains that algorithms, designed to maximize viewer engagement and ad revenue, decide which content is promoted and which is buried. He adds that creators often chase those algorithmic trends—tweaking their work to fit ever-changing rules—and sometimes watch their reach evaporate overnight with no clear explanation.
Ho adds that platforms also reserve the right to censor, demonetize, or remove content at will. Under these conditions, creators who challenge the status quo or tackle sensitive topics risk losing their audience and income without warning or recourse.
He mentions, “The paradox is clear: the platforms that claim to empower creators have, in many ways, become their gatekeepers and biggest beneficiaries.”
A New Model Emerges: The EQC One Proposition
Teklium’s CEO, Jason Ho, saw these inefficiencies and set out to build a platform for creators and audiences. Developed by Teklium Inc., EQC One is more than a conventional marketplace; it aims to reimagine how digital talent, content, and value flow online.
At its core, EQC One is a platform for content and talent exchange. It allows creators of all kinds, including musicians, authors, video producers, researchers, and influencers, to distribute their work to subscribers, sell directly to fans, or find commercial sponsors to make it available for free.
“EQC One aims to create a fair and progressive Internet by facilitating a set of new rules to remove barriers imposed by dominant entities, ensuring the Internet evolves with modern culture and society,” Ho shares.
How EQC One Flips the Normal Content Creation
When designing EQC One, the team put content creators first by tackling major platform inefficiencies. For example, instead of taking large cuts of earnings, EQC One charges only a 0.5% transaction fee, allowing creators to keep an industry-leading 99.5% of their sales. Ho emphasizes that this sharply contrasts with the hefty cuts taken by industry giants, where creators often end up with a much smaller share of the revenue.
EQC One also aims to eliminate creators’ infrastructure costs. In its model, servers, storage, bandwidth, and content delivery are provided without direct charges to creators — the platform’s digital currency and token system compensates service providers for these resources. In practice, this means creators and users can use cloud services without up-front hosting or delivery fees.
Beyond finances, EQC One promises to respect creators’ artistic freedom. It forbids hidden algorithmic filtering, so content discovery is driven by transparent metrics (like view counts, download statistics, and user ratings) and human recommendations rather than opaque algorithms.
EQC One also uses its quantum-inspired encryption (Emulated Quantum Communication, or EQC) to protect content against piracy. It introduces a “read-once” feature: once an authorized user decrypts and views a file, the decryption key is immediately invalidated. In other words, once someone watches the video, that specific encryption key is gone, preventing any further playback of that file copy.
Teklium uses “EQCertificates” to account for every transaction on the platform. These certificates track the computing power, storage, and bandwidth used by each piece of content, making payments transparent and based on actual resource usage rather than opaque criteria. Compensation then reflects the true cost of delivering the content, according to the network’s rules.
“This technology is a game-changer for creators who have long struggled with content theft and unauthorized distribution,” Ho says, underscoring EQC One’s emphasis on security.
With these features, EQC One aims to flip the traditional model of content creation on its head, empowering creators with greater control, stronger security, and the rewards they deserve.
Why Now? The Need for a New Platform
The timing for EQC One’s launch is no accident. The creator economy is at a crossroads. While more people than ever are producing and sharing content, the vast majority struggle to earn what they deserve. The dominance of a few major platforms has led to increasing calls for alternatives that are fairer, more transparent, and more aligned with creators’ interests.
Moreover, Ho notes that cybersecurity threats are on the rise. Content theft, data breaches, and privacy violations are becoming routine, eroding trust in existing platforms. Younger generations raised online demand platforms that reflect their values: openness, accountability, and genuine opportunity—qualities, Ho says, that EQC One is designed to embody.
The Road Ahead: Can EQC One Succeed?
Ho acknowledges that competition is fierce among major platforms. However, he believes that EQC One’s success will depend on its ability to attract creators and users at scale, deliver on its promises of fairness and security, and maintain its commitment to transparency as it grows.
“Digital privacy shouldn’t be a luxury or an afterthought,” says Ho. “With EQC One, we’re offering a secure, fairly compensated platform available to everyone, transforming how we think about data security in the digital age.”
A Question for the Future
The rise of the creator economy was supposed to usher in an era of empowerment and opportunity. Yet, for too many, the reality has been one of dependence on platforms that profit from their labor while limiting their control and earnings.
EQC One offers a glimpse of a different path, one where creators are truly at the center, where value flows to those who create it, and where technology serves the many, not the few. As the next generation of creators chooses where to build their digital lives, the question is no longer whether the world needs a platform like EQC One, but whether today's platforms can afford not to change.
Ho challenges, “What kind of creator economy do we want to build, and who should truly benefit from it? With EQC One, the future of possibilities awaits.”
This piece was published as part of HackerNoon’s Business Blogging Program.
Featured Photo Courtesy of Pexels