Infrastructure, Not Nostalgia

The story of this era isn’t just lost jobs. It’s the quiet rise of infrastructure.

Most people don’t notice it because infrastructure is invisible. It doesn’t look like the shows you used to work on. It doesn’t look like glamour. But it’s what’s replacing entire categories of labor.

We’ve already seen cable enter its zombie phase. Versant wasn’t a rebirth — it was a hospice, built to harvest value on the way down.

Streamers may grow, but labor doesn’t. Fewer episodes, leaner budgets, tighter ROI. They aren’t replacing what cable carried.

Where the Growth Is

But growth does exist. It’s just not in cable or traditional unscripted.

The creator economy is booming. It’s already worth about $250 billion and is projected to double to nearly $500 billion by 2027. Platforms are investing in digital-first, modular formats. Sony Pictures recently hired a head of creator partnerships to expand this line of business.

That’s not nostalgia. That’s infrastructure. Platforms don’t want more bodies; they want better plumbing.

Yesterday: More Hands. Today: Tighter Systems.

Here’s the blunt shift:

• Yesterday’s solution was labor volume. More assistant editors. More coordinators. More people chasing emails and approvals.

• Today’s solution is infrastructure. Rights frameworks that make contracts portable. Workflow automation that replaces manual tracking. Delivery systems that prevent disputes.

That’s the trade: invisible infrastructure replacing visible labor.

Yesterday’s solution was labor volume. Today’s solution is infrastructure.

The Roles That Build Infrastructure

I’ve seen this shift firsthand.

• Editors who became workflow architects, building integrations across Frame.io, Box, Dropbox, and delivery specs, are working.

• Coordinators who moved into rights and metadata management, ensuring usage, term, and territory data flow cleanly, are working.

• Producers who redesigned their shows around distribution metrics and platform standards, not just Nielsen ratings, are working.

None of this looks like the jobs we grew up in. But they’re the ones the system needs now.

Nostalgia says “bring back bigger crews.” But the system has already chosen tighter systems.

I’ve Felt It Too

I understand why people resist this. Infrastructure doesn’t feel like “making TV.” It feels like plumbing. It feels like the boring back office.

But without plumbing, nothing runs.

I’ve been lucky to build in this space, but I’ve felt the sting of the old system collapsing too. I know what it’s like to wait on pickups that never arrive. I know what it’s like to feel left out while budgets shrink.

The difference is, I’ve seen where survival actually comes from, and it isn’t nostalgia.

Infrastructure Is Survival

So here’s the line:

If you want to last in this business, attach yourself to the work that makes productions deliverable: rights logic, workflow plumbing, oversight that platforms can trust.

That’s not glamorous. But it’s survival.

The system isn’t moving backward. Cable isn’t being revived. The jobs we remember aren’t being restored.

What’s replacing them is invisible infrastructure.

And whether you see it as dull or not, it’s the only reason shows still make it to air, or to stream.

Nostalgia is a story about the past. Infrastructure is the only path to survival.