Recently, I’ve been seeing more arguments about whether secondary markets should be required to pay royalties… In the past, I would have taken a side: creators work hard, so of course they should get paid. Now, though, I’ve cooled down a bit. To put it simply, what traders care about is liquidity and certainty—once the rules get tangled and looped around, people will “vote with their feet,” and in the end, creators might not even come out ahead.

What I care about more now is this: whether the work itself can make people want to support it voluntarily, and whether the community can turn “give you a cup of milk tea money” into a habit, instead of hard-charging it through contracts. This wave of attention shifting sparked by memes and celebrity shoutouts is also pretty similar: sure, it’s lively, but don’t make “making quick money” the main storyline of the creator economy—don’t let the veteran players grab the last baton… I believe that. Anyway, I’ll just keep watching more, drawing more small scenes; taking it slow is fine too.