YouTube’s power move

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YouTube’s next big move: Owning the entire streaming game

YouTube has spent years trying to turn itself into the go-to hub for all things video. It’s already the most-watched app on TV screens, pulling in 10.8% of total TV time in the U.S. But now, it wants more—specifically, a bigger cut of the streaming subscription business.

Its plan? A revamped Primetime Channels, where users can subscribe to streaming services like Paramount+ and Max directly through YouTube. The concept isn’t new—Amazon has been doing it for years—but YouTube’s earlier attempts stalled because paid content was buried in a separate section of the app. People simply weren’t signing up.

The fix? A Netflix-style redesign that puts paid shows and movies front and center, mixing them in with YouTube’s free content. The goal is to make paid subscriptions feel like a seamless part of the YouTube experience, not an afterthought.

YouTube has been steadily increasing its subscription revenue, passing $15 billion last year. But there’s a limit to how much it can squeeze from ads, especially as ad dollars get spread thin across platforms. Subscriptions are the next frontier, and YouTube is making a hard push to own that space.

The update also includes a new way for creators to organize their content into episodes and seasons, moving YouTube even closer to looking like a full-fledged streaming service.

Between YouTube TV, NFL Sunday Ticket, and now this push for streaming subscriptions, YouTube is making its biggest bet yet on controlling the future of TV. The only question is whether it can actually pull it off.

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Today’s top updates

• Patreon is upgrading its home feed and discovery features to help creators reach more fans, with tests rolling out in the coming months.

• House Democrats tapped at least 40 creators and independent journalists to amplify their message ahead of Trump’s congressional address.

• Billo, a user-generated content and creator ads platform, announced its expanding its business to the U.K., Canada and Australia.

• ​Snapchat uses human moderation to determine which content appears on Snap Map, with auto-moderation tools trained to detect and exclude potentially problematic posts.

• X has introduced new feed sorting options within Communities, allowing users to organize group posts by "For you," "Top," and "Latest" categories

TikTok updates

It’s been a chaotic stretch for TikTok. From looming US bans to a child safety lawsuit unsealing major financial details, the short-form giant is in a high-stakes battle for survival.

💰 The big money move: Newly unsealed court documents revealed TikTok Live pulled in $1.7 billion globally in just one quarter of 2023—$400 million of that from the US. The company projects $77 billion in sales from Live by 2027, fueled by livestream shopping.

🇺🇸 The ban threat: The US government has given ByteDance until early April to sell TikTok’s US business or face a nationwide ban. Investors, including Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, have joined efforts to acquire the platform—but ByteDance isn’t budging.

🏨 The expansion plan: Even as its future remains uncertain, TikTok is hiring aggressively in the US and expanding into local services, a business that could integrate restaurant, hotel, and travel bookings directly into the app.

📢 The UK crackdown: Meanwhile, the UK is launching an investigation into how TikTok collects and uses children's personal data, joining a growing list of regulatory battles.

Passes faces lawsuit, fights back

Creator membership site Passes is under fire after a lawsuit accused the platform of hosting child pornography. Filed by OnlyFans creator Alice Rosenblum, the suit claims Passes knowingly distributed explicit content of her when she was underage.

Founder Lucy Guo pushed back hard, calling the claims “utterly meritless” and saying Passes suspended the flagged account immediately. The startup also emailed creators, accusing rivals like Fanfix of using the lawsuit to damage its reputation.

Passes, which raised $40 million from big names like Mary Meeker’s Bond Capital and Paris Hilton’s 11:11 Media, has marketed itself as a safe, SFW alternative to OnlyFans. But the lawsuit challenges that claim, alleging a former Passes contractor coerced Rosenblum into uploading explicit content.

With Passes already tangled in a separate lawsuit with Fanfix over trade secrets, this latest legal battle raises serious questions about oversight in the paywalled creator economy.

What we’re reading

Digiday: The Honey scandal is a ‘wake-up call’ for the creator industry’s affiliate partnerships.

Fast Company: The creator economy is facing an authenticity crisis.

Vox: The strange repulsion of Instagram Reels