Between $3.44 trillion and $11.69 trillion of value is created annually by the world's makers. Roughly $250 billion is actually paid. The missing amount is not stolen in one dramatic act — it drains through five ordinary joints in the plumbing.
The five leaks
| Leak | What happens | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| Unregistered rights | No registry entry, so no claim exists | Track usage instead of registrations |
| Untracked reuse | Mirrors, clips, translations go uncounted | Index every use event globally |
| Identity mismatch | Same person, twelve unlinked handles | Cluster handles into one identity |
| Eligibility gates | Demonetised or excluded accounts | Pay on usage, not platform status |
| No payout route | Amounts accrue with nowhere to land | Verified account linked at onboarding |
Notice what is absent from that list: bad faith. Nobody at most platforms decided to withhold your money. There was simply no line item with your name on it, because no system was counting.
- Created value
- $3.4–11.7T
- Paid out
- $0.25T
- Leakage
- >90%
- First payment
- 90 days
annual, global
measured creator economy
even at the conservative floor
guaranteed after signup
Sealing the pipe
A working payment layer needs four things in order: one verified identity per creator, an index of every use of their creations worldwide, a ledger that attributes each use to the right person or organisation, and a payout route that settles without asking permission from the platform where the content lived.
Unmeasured income is unpaid income. Measure it and the payment becomes routine.
That is the whole design of EARNIN TRACKER — and why creators, institutions and everyday users are already being indexed before they ever sign up.