Explaining the Risks of Digital Sharecropping to Your Website

We used to have a good-going coffee shop in our home town that was popular enough to attract coffee lovers from other cities as well. We would easily get our desired revenue and were happy to save the amount of money we wanted to. 

The cost we were paying to run our coffee shop was not so high. We were running it on a large decorated room that we rented from the property owner. Everything was going on quite happily when suddenly things got turned overnight. 

The revenue we were generating from the coffee shop started to seem too low. And we would not be able to even save for our monthly expenses.

Why? 

Because the property owner tripled the rent. My business failed because of someone else. This is exactly what digital sharecropping is. 

In this article, we will be explaining to you what exactly digital sharecropping is, in context to online marketing and blogging, and how it is a great threat to your website. 

What is Digital Sharecropping?

An author named Nicholas Carr first coined the term digital sharecropping. He did so to describe one of the several phenomena of web 2.0 aka the internet today. 

He says that the distribution of production on web 2.0 aka the internet today we use is in many hands whereas the responsibility for economic rewards is in only a few hands. 

Today, we as content creators mostly rely on third-party platforms to engage with our audience and provide them with our content. These third-party platforms are the social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Google, Bing, and Youtube, and so many other platforms we regularly use to get in touch with our audience. 

The more we create content on these platforms, the more valuable they become. Furthermore, the content pieces published on these platforms become one of their content pieces, even if you are the original creator of them. 

The term digital sharecropping is taken from a real-life practice in agriculture known as sharecropping. In agricultural sharecropping, a farmer works on the land of another farmer or entity who is usually bigger and richer than him. And in exchange, he gets some part of the total profit. 

Digital sharecropping follows the same procedure. For example, suppose a social media platform, say Instagram is the bigger farmer or the bigger entity that offers you the privilege to work under its land (its platform). 

Now you are the farmer who will be working under its land by providing content to its audience. And in return, you will get some part of the total profit of the platform.

For example, you may get some leads from the platform which you can nurture to convert into customers later. Ultimately, you are earning too low as compared to what the bigger entity is doing, and you do not have the rights to the content published as well. 

Why is Digital Sharecropping a Threat for Your Website?

So, have you also been a sharecropper till now and you were not even aware of this phenomenon as well? Well, this is not the time to regret and blame yourself for your mistakes. It is time to make things good. 

If you are still not clear whether or not you have been doing digital sharecropping till now, here are a few questions that will help you know. 

• Is your content credited to you?
• Do you have control over how your content will be displayed before the audience?
• Can you control the activation, archievation, and deletion of your content?
• Is your content downloadable?

If you find the answers to these questions in the negative, forgive me but you were doing digital sharecropping till now. And in case you are in this, you should be aware of how it can affect your content and website in a very bad way. 

1. You can be popular overnight 

Popularity becomes subject to change overnight when it comes to digital sharecropping. There is no guarantee that if you are becoming popular, you will be for a long time. We have seen many well-doing businesses and websites falling heavily in the blink of an eye multiple times. 

Why?

Because there is no guarantee that the platform you are investing your valuable time, efforts, and dedication in will last forever. And once it falls, you fall as well, without doing anything wrong. Yes, it sounds a bit rude but that’s how it goes on. 

2. You cant make it your own 

No matter how valuable and informative content you are providing your audience with, you can’t make it yours completely. Unless you have some direct links with the owners of the platforms, you will have to stick to their guidelines and terms. 

For example, Instagram allows you to post images to a fixed ratio, say 16:9. But suppose if your content is sized 4:1, how can you post it? No, you can’t! Unless you make changes to it and make it 16:9. 

There are other several things as well that you must follow. So ultimately, you will not the one to control your content. 

3. You rely on the landlord’s mercy 

Believe me or not, you are just a poor farmer working in a small piece of a big entity. And all you rely on in their mercy. Just think, even if you are one of the most popular creators on a big platform like Facebook or Instagram, what will happen if these platforms started to treat you in the wrong way? 

You won’t be as popular as you were yesterday. You will not be responsible for that and there is nothing you can do about it as well. 

Another perspective is something like this;

Think you are doing quite well on the platform with your content and strategies. Suddenly, the platform wishes to change its algorithm and you are unable to optimize your content for that. What will happen? Your content will no longer rank higher and you will fall. And again, there is nothing you can do about it. 

Ultimately, you rely on the landlord’s mercy, and it can change anytime!

What Can You Do About Digital Sharecropping?

No matter what the problem is, there is always a solution to it. There are ways to reduce the effect of digital sharecropping as well. 

You can do it by creating a well-designed, SEO-friendly, and informative website. By creating one such website, you will be owning the content piece you create and will not rely on these third-party platforms. 

Learn more about marketing and website-related information at our website daily, so stay tuned.