it's weird how the two nft meta-defining brands, SuperRare and Zora, both seem to try as hard as possible to not build for onchain creators

Strat/art/design. Thoughts: /user-steen Director: /enjoy Guild: /metaliminal Zora: zora.co/@usersteen

What do onchain creators need that they're not offering 

This feels difficult to answer succinctly, so I'll flip it:

Creators basically want a manifold + personal marketplace + means for distribution.

SR and zora want to lock creators in and are extremely inflexible. SR is increasingly worse at distro, zora is improving. SRs tools have mostly stayed the same, zora's have been continually cut down. Neither business model feels right for creators*.

In the middle is something like FND, which despite occasional innovation and great design, is currently on the backburner and was always behind anyway.

*I think zora's protocol is brilliant, but their app is built for a mainstream audience that isn't onchain. The protocol requires huge volume, but cloned IG UX doesn't facilitate that (yet).

which biz? manifold + personal market + dist?

I'm talking more from a ux perspective than anything. As a former 1/1 maxi I've pretty much reversed course completely - I believe zora's hybrid erc20 model is by far the best token model to-date. I'm also interested in Mint's model (https://mint.vv.xyz/guide). So, while I'm tempted to say let creators create however they want, I don't believe that's right anymore. 

Talking UX, I think Zora is pretty atrocious; the entire experience is predicated on the idea that onchain media = posts. I get it, it's easy to explain etc etc. But it's not the right framework for anything truly valuable. This is more culpable for the negative view of the "free mint" meta than edition pricing.

YT and Twitch (seen more commonly as creator platforms) provide much to learn from. YT, in particular, respects its creators, content, and consumers more than most. 

Zora lacks this respect, and the platform's content reflects that.

A deeper issue I think is that the business you describe kinda just doesn't work (imo). Even if there is market demand for artist limited editions or auctions (which there isn't at the moment), there's not enough txns in that model for a business to take a per-mint fee, and they can't take a % of volume because would end up getting competed to zero