Personal TikToks, Crypto Laundering, and Apple!
(site migrated, initially posted Feb 09, 2022)
đŠđ˝âđ¨Â Creators: Moonlighting at Creator Companies is ... Complicated
đ Crypto: Canât Launder Like Al Capone, Couple Launders $4.5 billion in Bitcoin
đ°Â Product: Apple + Stripe = World - Square? Accept Direct Payments on Phone
Moonlighting at Creator Companies#
Today, The Information wrote a piece about the complications of being a creator while working for the platform itself â such as having a TikTok following and also being employed by TikTok. The majority of these platforms allow you to monetize your personal accounts with some restrictions. If youâve read doubtiswelcomeâs About, youâll find that I dislike how certain employers can feel that they own you and your time. The fact that these creator companies donât straight up bar personal accounts and monetization, knowing very well that creating content is hard and time-consuming is already a great step in the right direction.
Still, some of the restrictions can be frustrating. TikTok for example, doesnât allow you to be part of the creator fund and they can block certain brand partnerships. Just the friction of running it through the company every time is annoying in itself. It begs the question, for a platform as ubiquitous as TikTok or YouTube, how much should the company restrict âpersonal usageâ? And what counts as broad âpersonal usageâ? If I worked for Stripe, and they restricted how I could use the Checkout product, I would be pissed. So why canât TikTok employees be part of the Creator Fund, especially if they are framing it as the primary monetization mechanism? I get there are some optics issues around it, âoh are the employees being favored by the algo?!?â The platform should be transparent about these issues and concerns.
This warrants its own conversation, but the same The Information article highlighted a study about âEmpowerment from Side-Hustles and Its Effects on Full-Time Work Performanceâ yet employers definitely frown upon it, or even worse champion it, but claw back their support when you actually start doing it. A conversation for another time!
Canât Launder Crypto#
Law enforcement arrested a couple for trying to launder $4.5 billion dollars worth of Bitcoin. 4.5 BILLION DOLLARS. Thatâs more than the GDP of several small countries, and estimates have Al Capone laundering south of a billion dollars.
Twitter is going wild over the web3 rapper wife and seemingly normal engineer/YC husband, even though itâs interesting, I wonât be talking about that. Whatâs more interesting to me is how the two of them âemployed numerous sophisticated laundering techniquesâ and still could not turn this into cash. This flys in the face of the public opinion that âcrypto is for criminal activities and money laundering.â I think this makes it pretty clear that a public ledger makes it possible to track these funds and the moment it hits an exchange, law enforcement can do what they need to do. It also proves to me that law enforcement isnât as incapable as politicians had them out to be when referencing crypto. Not only were they able to arrest these âsophisticated launderers,â but they managed to seize $3.6 billion worth of the assets too.
Apple + Stripe = World - Square?#
Apple and Stripe announced yesterday that businesses could accept payments with just an iPhone. My first thought was how you wouldnât need the clunky Square point-of-sale block anymore, but I imagine sellers will have both just in case they need to read the magnetic strip.
First of all, this is great for solopreneurs and smaller businesses, who can reduce the one-time costs of starting a business and accepting payments quickly. Iâm excited to see this used more at farmers' markets and food trucks (yes thatâs my life).
Secondly, I was curious how much revenue Square actually made from sellers, so I pulled up their quarterly report.
Itâs clear the hardware of the blocks and POS devices arenât the bulk of it, itâs the cut they take from transactions (someone correct me if Iâm wrong). So this is substantial to Squareâs business if Apple can cut out a lot of this. My guess is this includes online storefronts and other products, but time will tell if this carves out some of the pie for Square. Whatâs more wild to me is the Cash App Bitcoin revenue, what does that mean?? And how is more than Seller transaction revenue?? Iâll have to do some more reading.