YouTube, at 20, Has Hosted 20 Trillion Videos and Launched Superstars. It Wants More—Including Some Prestige

Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal are friends from small-town North Carolina who met in first -grade detention.

Their YouTube channels have a combined audience of 30 million subscribers.

Good Mythical Morning alone has twice as many viewers aged 18 to 34 as Seth , Stephen , Jimmy , and Jimmy combined.

Netflix cofounder Reed Hastings called platforms like YouTube and TikTok his streamer’s biggest “threat-slash-opportunity” A kind of détente between Hollywood and YouTube emerged as executives realized how useful the platform was for distributing their own wares.

Successful YouTube creators increasingly consider it a side gig, with all the freedom and entrepreneurialism that entails.

YouTube CEO Mohan likes to call the legion of creator-led studios popping up “the start-up economy of Hollywood ” Mohan is pushing hard for the TV Academy to be more welcoming of creators.

While traditional TV studios have humans vetting content and applying strict standards, YouTube is a largely unregulated environment ruled by algorithms.