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Joseph Melles is a content creator who has made thousands from Snap’s Spotlight feature, but he is now planning to post his content elsewhere after payments from the company have started to dry up.
Courtesy of Joseph Melles

Joseph Melles had been working at Wendy’s for a few months when he began to post videos to Snapchat’s Spotlight feature in hopes of landing some of the $1 million per day prize money the company was offering for videos that went on the app. 

Melles started posting videos in March, and Snap, the company that makes Snapchat, sent him a message in April offering him thousands of dollars after one of his videos racked up 300,000 views in 24 hours. Melles got a $19,600 payment from Snap for the video, and he quit his Wendy’s job a few days later.

“I was just in shock,” said Melles, 18 of Colorado.

Snapchat set the bar last year when it announced it would pay out Spotlight creators from a pot of $1 million per day that the company promised it would continue to pay at least through 2020.

The social media giant minted a new class of millionaires, changing hundreds of lives. But that all began to change when the company announced on May 20 that it would no longer pay $1 million per day. Instead, Snap would pay “millions” per month starting June 1. A Snap spokeswoman told CNBC the new payout amount is in the “double-digit” millions each month, but declined to give a specific figure.

Now, complaining that payments are dwindling ever since that change, these creators are in search of other short-form video platforms where they can find similar hefty payments they had once gotten from Snap. 

Despite making a living off Snap for the better part of this year, Melles said he hasn’t posted a video to Spotlight since June. Although he was once posting as many as 100 videos per day, Melles said Snap’s erratic payments since June 1 have demotivated him from creating more content for Spotlight. 

“It’s sad because I worked really hard every day putting the hours in, but they haven’t paid me,” he said. 

Melles is among a migration of social media users who are taking their content-creating talents from Snapchat’s Spotlight feature and heading to other paying services. Social media companies are in a fierce battle over getting creators to prioritize individual apps. Companies like Snap, Facebook, Google, TikTok and Twitter are courting creators to try and get them to spend more time on each individual platform, so they can fill the app’s content feeds to draw more advertising revenue. 

“If they keep on skipping people like this, I feel like a lot of people will leave,” said Melles, who now spends his time creating YouTube videos. 

Despite these complaints, Snap’s spokespeople told CNBC that the company remains heavily invested in paying creators and is now reaching all-time highs for creators who submit content to Spotlight on a daily basis. The company, however, did not specify an exact figure for this all-time high.

“We have seen incredible creativity and growth on Spotlight this year, including a tripling of daily submissions quarter-over-quarter and all-time highs in the daily number of creators posting to Spotlight since June 1,” a Snap spokesperson said in a statement. “While this growth has made our incentive program more competitive, more creators are receiving Spotlight payouts than ever before, and we have recently rolled out a wide variety of new programs and tools to help creators continue to grow and monetize with Snapchat.” 

Snap also noted that restructuring its payout program allowed the company the flexibility to support creators who cater to niche communities as opposed to determining pay outs based solely on the absolute engagement that a single video gets.

Neda Anvar is a content creator who has made thousands from Snap’s Spotlight feature, but he is now planning to post his content elsewhere after payments from the company have started to dry up.
Courtesy of Neda Anvar

‘Going H.A.M.’ for $1 million a day

Snap launched Spotlight in November 2020 as its answer to TikTok and Facebook’s Instagram Reels. The company rolled out Spotlight along with a daily pool of more than $1 million as an incentive to motivate users to submit content to the new feature. 

That pile of cash drew in numerous teens and young adults with a surplus of free time during their virtual school and work days throughout the pandemic. These creators would upload numerous videos a day in hopes that one or two might go viral and warrant payment. 

Neda Anvar, 23 of California, was among them. She began making Spotlight videos in February after hearing from some friends that there was money to be made. The first time Anvar got paid, she received a modest $3,000 for one of her videos. But not long after, one of her friends was paid $100,000 by Snap for two of his videos that went viral. 

“After we got those initial first payments around February, then we started going H.A.M.,” Anvar said. (H.A.M. is a crude acronym popularized by Kanye West and Jay-Z, which roughly means to do something excessively.) “I work from home, so I kind of made it my second full-time job when I had little breaks in between my job.”

Anvar focused her content on just making short, catchy videos designed to grab audiences’ attention and lead them to watch multiple times, wracking up her videos’ view counts. The goal was for her videos to get at least 100,000 views in a 24-hour period. Prior to June 1, that was the rough threshold for knowing a video would get paid, she said. The method was to post multiple videos per day. 

“It was all about consistency and probability. One of them was bound to go viral on Spotlight,” said Anvar, whose system worked. By her count, Anvar has earned approximately $130,000 from Snap in 2021. 

For many of these creators, the money was life changing.  

Jhordyn Gaddy, 25 of Missouri, was “a completely broke kid” before he started posting Spotlight videos in November. Gaddy’s cellphone service had been turned off and his car was about to be repossessed, but after he read on Twitter about Snap’s $1 million per day Spotlight program, he posted 10 videos. One of those went viral, and Snap notified Gaddy he’d receive a payment for nearly $19,000.

“When they actually sent the money, my jaw hit the floor,” Gaddy said. 

Not long after, Gaddy took his Snap Spectacles, Snap’s computerized glasses with cameras designed for making Snapchat videos, and used them to record the view from the top of Pikes Peak in Missouri. He uploaded the video, and it racked up views over two days. Snap paid him twice for the video for a total of $93,000.

“This completely changed my life from where I was to where I am now,” said Gaddy, who used some of the money to turn his phone back on, pay off his car, buy his mom a Louis Vuitton purse and buy his little sister a car. 

“I made a few big purchases, but I still have a lot of money left,” Gaddy said. 

For Snap, the million dollar a day program was money well spent. It was able to quickly grow time spent on Spotlight and became one of its most used features. Snap said that in its second quarter, investing in Spotlight contributed approximately $76 million to its cost of revenue. 

Snap in April said Spotlight has reached 125 million monthly active users. In the company’s latest earnings call, Snap said Spotlight’s average daily content submissions more than tripled when compared to the prior quarter, it said. In the U.S. alone, daily time spent on Spotlight grew more than 60% since the first quarter, Snap added.

At the same time, the app grew to 293 million daily active users users overall this prior quarter. 

Jhordyn Gaddy is a content creator who has made thousands from Snap’s Spotlight feature, but he is now planning to post his content elsewhere after payments from the company have started to dry up.
Courtesy of Jhordyn Gaddy

‘No rhyme or reason’

Upset Snapchat creators can point to a date when they say things shifted with the company: June 1. 

Snap announced earlier this year it would change its incentive structure. Instead of a daily offering, users could earn from a pool of millions of dollars per month. When announcing the change in May, Snap said more than 5,400 creators had collectively earned over $130 million.

The company was still offering what was presented as hefty incentives, so many creators believed they’d still earn enough to justify their content creation. What they did not expect was how random the payments would become, many creators who spoke with CNBC said. 

Whereas before creators could reliably count on a payment if one of their videos went viral with more than hundreds of thousands of views within a day, now it is more of a raffle as to who gets paid. Several users chatting about their woes on the app Discord in a group called “Snapchat Spotlight” told CNBC they have had videos with millions of views in a 24-hour period since June 1 that did not receive any payment. Meanwhile, videos with fewer views might receive payments. 

Spotlight creators say there was a method to how Snap paid them prior to June 1, but now, there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to who gets paid. 

“I simply just want to know why I’m not getting paid for my videos,” said Caren Babaknia, who is one of the moderators of the Discord group. Babaknia, 24 of the state of Washington, said they have earned about $250,000 from Spotlight. 

Many of the creators in the Discord server said they feel Snap should pay them for their videos that have gone viral since June 1. Others say they simply want better communication from Snap so they can better understand how the company is determining who gets paid. The creators say there is no way to communicate directly with the company. There is a support email they can reach out to, but whenever they do, all they receive is an automated response. 

“Now it’s like ‘Oh I got 300,000 views. Maybe, if I’m really lucky, I’ll get paid,'” Anvar said. “Is it worth making content anymore because it seems like it’s a random raffle who gets paid and who doesn’t.”

Caren Babaknia is a content creator who has made thousands from Snap’s Spotlight feature, but he is now planning to post his content elsewhere after payments from the company have started to dry up.
Courtesy of Caren Babaknia

Creators jump ship to Instagram, YouTube and TikTok

The decrease in payments, the erratic nature of who gets paid and the lack of communication from Snap is why many of the Spotlight creators who spoke with CNBC said they’re considering leaving the platform or have already taken their content elsewhere. 

Melles’ YouTube account, for example, was recently monetized, which means he’ll soon be able to start earning money for the content he posts on YouTube’s video service. Anvar said she is planning to post videos to TikTok moving forward. TikTok doesn’t pay for content as much as Snap does, but there are brand deal opportunities to be had on that service, she said. Gaddy said he has pretty much stopped posting Spotlight videos and plans to instead post videos on YouTube and start a podcast where he talks about social media. And Babaknia said he is now also posting his content on TikTok and Instagram Reels.

“Once they stopped paying $1 million a day they stopped putting their care into it,” Babaknia said. 

Some creators indicated they’re planning on heading to YouTube Shorts or Instagram Reels. That’s because both of the companies recently have ramped up their efforts to draw in creators, each offering their own creator funds.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said last month the company would pay out $1 billion now through 2022 to users who create content for its Facebook and Instagram social networks. The company also introduced a Reels Summer Bonus that would pay U.S. users who create great Reels content for Instagram. 

Google announced its YouTube Shorts Fund in May, which will pay out $100 million to creators over the course of 2021 to 2022. 

The Snap spokesperson told CNBC that there are other opportunities for creators to generate revenue through Snapchat besides Spotlight submissions. These avenues include Syndicated Shows on Snapchat’s Discover feature, an upcoming Gifting program, a Creator Marketplace and commerce opportunities. Snap also added that more features and creator programs will be announced soon.

Fortunately for Snap, however, its Spotlight feature is already populated with content. When Spotlight first launched, Snap relied on the $1 million per day pool to stimulate the creation of content. That prize money served to create a flywheel effect where now Spotlight has a steady stream of content and may no longer need a monetary boost. 

The creators who are leaving Spotlight say they’re grateful for the money they earned from Snap, but they think the company is making a mistake. Some of the creators said they’ve already noticed a decrease in the quality of the content found on Spotlight as a result of the drop in payments. 

“From what I see on Spotlight, there’s no good content. Everything I see on Spotlight I could see on TikTok or Reels or YouTube Shorts. It’s pretty much all the same content now,” Gaddy said. “It used to be like actually looking at somebody’s Snapchat story. Spotlight used to be way more interesting.”

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How Elon Musk’s plan to slash government agencies and regulation may benefit his empire

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How Elon Musk’s plan to slash government agencies and regulation may benefit his empire

Elon Musk’s business empire is sprawling. It includes electric vehicle maker Tesla, social media company X, artificial intelligence startup xAI, computer interface company Neuralink, tunneling venture Boring Company and aerospace firm SpaceX. 

Some of his ventures already benefit tremendously from federal contracts. SpaceX has received more than $19 billion from contracts with the federal government, according to research from FedScout. Under a second Trump presidency, more lucrative contracts could come its way. SpaceX is on track to take in billions of dollars annually from prime contracts with the federal government for years to come, according to FedScout CEO Geoff Orazem.

Musk, who has frequently blamed the government for stifling innovation, could also push for less regulation of his businesses. Earlier this month, Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy were tapped by Trump to lead a government efficiency group called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

In a recent commentary piece in the Wall Street Journal, Musk and Ramaswamy wrote that DOGE will “pursue three major kinds of reform: regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions and cost savings.” They went on to say that many existing federal regulations were never passed by Congress and should therefore be nullified, which President-elect Trump could accomplish through executive action. Musk and Ramaswamy also championed the large-scale auditing of agencies, calling out the Pentagon for failing its seventh consecutive audit. 

“The number one way Elon Musk and his companies would benefit from a Trump administration is through deregulation and defanging, you know, giving fewer resources to federal agencies tasked with oversight of him and his businesses,” says CNBC technology reporter Lora Kolodny.

To learn how else Elon Musk and his companies may benefit from having the ear of the president-elect watch the video.

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Why X’s new terms of service are driving some users to leave Elon Musk’s platform

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Why X's new terms of service are driving some users to leave Elon Musk's platform

Elon Musk attends the America First Policy Institute gala at Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, Nov. 14, 2024.

Carlos Barria | Reuters

X’s new terms of service, which took effect Nov. 15, are driving some users off Elon Musk’s microblogging platform. 

The new terms include expansive permissions requiring users to allow the company to use their data to train X’s artificial intelligence models while also making users liable for as much as $15,000 in damages if they use the platform too much. 

The terms are prompting some longtime users of the service, both celebrities and everyday people, to post that they are taking their content to other platforms. 

“With the recent and upcoming changes to the terms of service — and the return of volatile figures — I find myself at a crossroads, facing a direction I can no longer fully support,” actress Gabrielle Union posted on X the same day the new terms took effect, while announcing she would be leaving the platform.

“I’m going to start winding down my Twitter account,” a user with the handle @mplsFietser said in a post. “The changes to the terms of service are the final nail in the coffin for me.”

It’s unclear just how many users have left X due specifically to the company’s new terms of service, but since the start of November, many social media users have flocked to Bluesky, a microblogging startup whose origins stem from Twitter, the former name for X. Some users with new Bluesky accounts have posted that they moved to the service due to Musk and his support for President-elect Donald Trump.

Bluesky’s U.S. mobile app downloads have skyrocketed 651% since the start of November, according to estimates from Sensor Tower. In the same period, X and Meta’s Threads are up 20% and 42%, respectively. 

X and Threads have much larger monthly user bases. Although Musk said in May that X has 600 million monthly users, market intelligence firm Sensor Tower estimates X had 318 million monthly users as of October. That same month, Meta said Threads had nearly 275 million monthly users. Bluesky told CNBC on Thursday it had reached 21 million total users this week.

Here are some of the noteworthy changes in X’s new service terms and how they compare with those of rivals Bluesky and Threads.

Artificial intelligence training

X has come under heightened scrutiny because of its new terms, which say that any content on the service can be used royalty-free to train the company’s artificial intelligence large language models, including its Grok chatbot.

“You agree that this license includes the right for us to (i) provide, promote, and improve the Services, including, for example, for use with and training of our machine learning and artificial intelligence models, whether generative or another type,” X’s terms say.

Additionally, any “user interactions, inputs and results” shared with Grok can be used for what it calls “training and fine-tuning purposes,” according to the Grok section of the X app and website. This specific function, though, can be turned off manually. 

X’s terms do not specify whether users’ private messages can be used to train its AI models, and the company did not respond to a request for comment.

“You should only provide Content that you are comfortable sharing with others,” read a portion of X’s terms of service agreement.

Though X’s new terms may be expansive, Meta’s policies aren’t that different. 

The maker of Threads uses “information shared on Meta’s Products and services” to get its training data, according to the company’s Privacy Center. This includes “posts or photos and their captions.” There is also no direct way for users outside of the European Union to opt out of Meta’s AI training. Meta keeps training data “for as long as we need it on a case-by-case basis to ensure an AI model is operating appropriately, safely and efficiently,” according to its Privacy Center. 

Under Meta’s policy, private messages with friends or family aren’t used to train AI unless one of the users in a chat chooses to share it with the models, which can include Meta AI and AI Studio.

Bluesky, which has seen a user growth surge since Election Day, doesn’t do any generative AI training. 

“We do not use any of your content to train generative AI, and have no intention of doing so,” Bluesky said in a post on its platform Friday, confirming the same to CNBC as well.

Liquidated damages

Bluesky CEO: Our platform is 'radically different' from anything else in social media

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The Pentagon’s battle inside the U.S. for control of a new Cyber Force

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The Pentagon's battle inside the U.S. for control of a new Cyber Force

A recent Chinese cyber-espionage attack inside the nation’s major telecom networks that may have reached as high as the communications of President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance was designated this week by one U.S. senator as “far and away the most serious telecom hack in our history.”

The U.S. has yet to figure out the full scope of what China accomplished, and whether or not its spies are still inside U.S. communication networks.

“The barn door is still wide open, or mostly open,” Senator Mark Warner of Virginia and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee told the New York Times on Thursday.

The revelations highlight the rising cyberthreats tied to geopolitics and nation-state actor rivals of the U.S., but inside the federal government, there’s disagreement on how to fight back, with some advocates calling for the creation of an independent federal U.S. Cyber Force. In September, the Department of Defense formally appealed to Congress, urging lawmakers to reject that approach.

Among one of the most prominent voices advocating for the new branch is the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a national security think tank, but the issue extends far beyond any single group. In June, defense committees in both the House and Senate approved measures calling for independent evaluations of the feasibility to create a separate cyber branch, as part of the annual defense policy deliberations.

Drawing on insights from more than 75 active-duty and retired military officers experienced in cyber operations, the FDD’s 40-page report highlights what it says are chronic structural issues within the U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM), including fragmented recruitment and training practices across the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines.

“America’s cyber force generation system is clearly broken,” the FDD wrote, citing comments made in 2023 by then-leader of U.S. Cyber Command, Army General Paul Nakasone, who took over the role in 2018 and described current U.S. military cyber organization as unsustainable: “All options are on the table, except the status quo,” Nakasone had said.

Concern with Congress and a changing White House

The FDD analysis points to “deep concerns” that have existed within Congress for a decade — among members of both parties — about the military being able to staff up to successfully defend cyberspace. Talent shortages, inconsistent training, and misaligned missions, are undermining CYBERCOM’s capacity to respond effectively to complex cyber threats, it says. Creating a dedicated branch, proponents argue, would better position the U.S. in cyberspace. The Pentagon, however, warns that such a move could disrupt coordination, increase fragmentation, and ultimately weaken U.S. cyber readiness.

As the Pentagon doubles down on its resistance to establishment of a separate U.S. Cyber Force, the incoming Trump administration could play a significant role in shaping whether America leans toward a centralized cyber strategy or reinforces the current integrated framework that emphasizes cross-branch coordination.

Known for his assertive national security measures, Trump’s 2018 National Cyber Strategy emphasized embedding cyber capabilities across all elements of national power and focusing on cross-departmental coordination and public-private partnerships rather than creating a standalone cyber entity. At that time, the Trump’s administration emphasized centralizing civilian cybersecurity efforts under the Department of Homeland Security while tasking the Department of Defense with addressing more complex, defense-specific cyber threats. Trump’s pick for Secretary of Homeland Security, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, has talked up her, and her state’s, focus on cybersecurity.

Former Trump officials believe that a second Trump administration will take an aggressive stance on national security, fill gaps at the Energy Department, and reduce regulatory burdens on the private sector. They anticipate a stronger focus on offensive cyber operations, tailored threat vulnerability protection, and greater coordination between state and local governments. Changes will be coming at the top of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which was created during Trump’s first term and where current director Jen Easterly has announced she will leave once Trump is inaugurated.

Cyber Command 2.0 and the U.S. military

John Cohen, executive director of the Program for Countering Hybrid Threats at the Center for Internet Security, is among those who share the Pentagon’s concerns. “We can no longer afford to operate in stovepipes,” Cohen said, warning that a separate cyber branch could worsen existing silos and further isolate cyber operations from other critical military efforts.

Cohen emphasized that adversaries like China and Russia employ cyber tactics as part of broader, integrated strategies that include economic, physical, and psychological components. To counter such threats, he argued, the U.S. needs a cohesive approach across its military branches. “Confronting that requires our military to adapt to the changing battlespace in a consistent way,” he said.

In 2018, CYBERCOM certified its Cyber Mission Force teams as fully staffed, but concerns have been expressed by the FDD and others that personnel were shifted between teams to meet staffing goals — a move they say masked deeper structural problems. Nakasone has called for a CYBERCOM 2.0, saying in comments early this year “How do we think about training differently? How do we think about personnel differently?” and adding that a major issue has been the approach to military staffing within the command.

Austin Berglas, a former head of the FBI’s cyber program in New York who worked on consolidation efforts inside the Bureau, believes a separate cyber force could enhance U.S. capabilities by centralizing resources and priorities. “When I first took over the [FBI] cyber program … the assets were scattered,” said Berglas, who is now the global head of professional services at supply chain cyber defense company BlueVoyant. Centralization brought focus and efficiency to the FBI’s cyber efforts, he said, and it’s a model he believes would benefit the military’s cyber efforts as well. “Cyber is a different beast,” Berglas said, emphasizing the need for specialized training, advancement, and resource allocation that isn’t diluted by competing military priorities.

Berglas also pointed to the ongoing “cyber arms race” with adversaries like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. He warned that without a dedicated force, the U.S. risks falling behind as these nations expand their offensive cyber capabilities and exploit vulnerabilities across critical infrastructure.

Nakasone said in his comments earlier this year that a lot has changed since 2013 when U.S. Cyber Command began building out its Cyber Mission Force to combat issues like counterterrorism and financial cybercrime coming from Iran. “Completely different world in which we live in today,” he said, citing the threats from China and Russia.

Brandon Wales, a former executive director of the CISA, said there is the need to bolster U.S. cyber capabilities, but he cautions against major structural changes during a period of heightened global threats.

“A reorganization of this scale is obviously going to be disruptive and will take time,” said Wales, who is now vice president of cybersecurity strategy at SentinelOne.

He cited China’s preparations for a potential conflict over Taiwan as a reason the U.S. military needs to maintain readiness. Rather than creating a new branch, Wales supports initiatives like Cyber Command 2.0 and its aim to enhance coordination and capabilities within the existing structure. “Large reorganizations should always be the last resort because of how disruptive they are,” he said.

Wales says it’s important to ensure any structural changes do not undermine integration across military branches and recognize that coordination across existing branches is critical to addressing the complex, multidomain threats posed by U.S. adversaries. “You should not always assume that centralization solves all of your problems,” he said. “We need to enhance our capabilities, both defensively and offensively. This isn’t about one solution; it’s about ensuring we can quickly see, stop, disrupt, and prevent threats from hitting our critical infrastructure and systems,” he added.

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