"A little more than a decade ago - several years before he'd piss off a lot of Hollywood as CEO of WarnerMedia with his pandemic-driven "Project Popcorn" - Jason Kilar summoned journalists like me to one-on-one presentations showing off his flashy new startup Vessel. Armed with more than $70 million in funding, the former Hulu CEO promised to completely revolutionize how people watched digital shortform programming by essentially creating a new exclusive paid window for videos from top YouTube creators like Rhett & Link."
"One of the lessons of the failed Vessel experiment was that it didn't make a lot of sense for creators to drive audiences to new platforms when they were already happily watching YouTube programming for free. So I've been watching with interest as, over the last couple of years, YouTube creators have embraced an off-YouTube strategy designed to mimic the stodgy old world of linear TV."
Vessel launched with over $70 million and promised a paid exclusive window for top YouTube creators but failed to attract paying users and was sold to Verizon within two years. The Vessel outcome showed that creators struggled to move audiences away from free YouTube content. As a result, creators are pursuing off-YouTube strategies that replicate traditional television habits. FAST channels offer live-style, continuous streaming meant to evoke channel surfing and linear schedules. Top creators are increasingly deploying these FAST-style feeds as an alternative distribution approach to platform-exclusive paywalls.
Read at Theankler
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