Paid, but not a partner: Monetization without standing in Facebook’s Performance Bonus Program

Platform revenue-sharing programs both pay and govern creators. Drawing on interviews with 18 participants in Facebook’s Performance Bonus Program (PBP) and the author’s own participation, this study examines how monetization reshaped creators’ platform governance expectations. PBP’s onboarding, which addressed recipients as “valued creators” and promised earnings of “up to $30,000 a month,” combined with early recurring payouts to cultivate expectations of continuity and institutional responsiveness, particularly among participants new to monetization. When enforcement errors, payout volatility, and support failures followed, participants discovered that payment had not conferred meaningful access to explanation, human review, or recourse. This article theorizes that condition as monetization without standing : a governance arrangement in which creators are compensated and governed as laborers while denied the procedural recognition typically associated with paid work. This arrangement constitutes a breach of the psychological contract generated by monetization, producing durable behavioral constraint, disparate impacts on marginalized creators, and creator attrition.