It's Wednesday and Anthropic may have underestimated fans’ attachment to Claude 3 Sonnet. After news broke of the bot’s retirement, over 200 people gathered for an IRL funeral hosted in its honor.

Today’s News

PLATFORM UPDATES

YouTube is giving some hubs a Netflix makeover

The experiment: YouTube’s latest in-development feature is bringing the platform to new frontiers.

While the world’s largest video sharing site occasionally makes tweaks to things like channel bios and tabs, it hasn’t moved away from its classic channel page UX—aka the standard rolodex-of-one-inch-thumbnails—in, well, ever. An “early experimentation” of a new feature, however, is designed to change that while rewarding channels that have essentially become full-fledged creative studios.

The makeover: A new Shows layout flips YouTube’s typical UX on its head with Netflix-style episode descriptions, a “Watch Now” button, and shelves of scheduled content reminiscent of DirecTV. Take Law&Crime: the true crime network—which was founded in 2016 by longtime TV host Dan Abrams and sold to Jellysmack for a reported $125 million in 2023—generates around 100 million monthly views with evening news-style episodes.

Thanks to Shows, Law&Crime’s home tab now features a nearly edge-to-edge shelf of recent videos. Supersized thumbnails are overlaid with view counts and video length info, and each video gets a few seconds of spotlight before cycling on to the next. Further down, viewers can see the next slate of programming up to 12 hours in advance.

The details: In addition to featuring that updated UX (which is shown to 10% of users “in select countries”), hubs like Law&Crime can appear in the “Recommended Shows” and “Continue Watching” shelves on the YouTube homepage and are “eligible for continued watching treatment in Watch Next” (per YouTube). Shows enrolling now will also get early access to the YouTube Studio Shows toolkit, which includes features like season organization, “TV optimized Show artwork,” and genre tags.

YouTube says the overall goal of Shows is to “elevate the UX and discovery of…playlists with a clear connection across episodes.”

In other words: YouTube wants to give studio-level creators a way to look more like a TV network with TV shows. That tracks. TV is where most people in the U.S. watch YouTube content and YouTube now commands 12.5% of all U.S. TV consumption. Entertainment industry trends suggest that percentage is only going up. Product updates like this might just give it a boost.

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• Creators like the McCarty family are poised to take over Hollywood. As a leading social media marketing agency, Viral Nation wants to help them get there. (Tubefilter)
  
  

• A new Illinois law bans any AI chatbot from “acting as a stand-alone therapist” and places limits on how licensed therapists can use AI tools when diagnosing and treating patients. (Engadget)
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• Roku has announced the launch of Howdy, a new streaming service that will cost U.S. subscribers just $3/month. (Ars Technica)
  
  

• Shortly after departing her role as CEO of X, Linda Yaccarino has taken on her next chief executive role at AI startup eMed Population Health. (TechCrunch)

TOP 100 MOST-SUBSCRIBED

The humble arcade is becoming a short-form hotspot

The context: Short-form creators across YouTube, Reels, and TikTok know the trick to viewer retention is keeping your audience guessing until the very end. But before platforms like YouTube ever existed, another entertainment medium kept consumers hooked with promises of big payoffs: arcade games.

The hold-your-breath marketing tactics behind old-school claw machines are just as relevant in the Shorts era as they were in the golden age of arcades—and no one knows that better than TYE Arcade.

The channel: The arcade-focused YouTube channel amps up the inherent suspense of claw machines by providing satisfying conclusions most of the time—except for when a video suddenly cuts off just before the final claw drops. Add in some novelty by alternating between different games, and a few instances of rage bait (like tossing a hard-earned prize on the arcade floor) and the result is a steady influx of views. 

That artful approach to short-form retention helped TYE Arcade climb to #72 in this month’s global ranking of most-subscribed YouTube channels. During July, the old-school gaming hub added 1.1 million new subscribers—an 82% increase over June’s haul. The result: TYE’s total sub count is now just shy of eight million.

SHOP TALK

Will the WGA unionize the writers of YouTube?

The context: In 2023, the relationship between Hollywood unions and the creator economy shifted. That year, entertainment industry strikes triggered a work stoppage for members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and SAG-AFTRA—and to underscore their solidarity, many creators signed a “labor over likes” pledge, promising not to serve as scabs.

Since then, Hollywood unions have taken steps to embrace the creators who supported their grievances. That effort began at SAG-AFTRA, which announced earlier this year that it planned to welcome influencers into its ranks. Now, the WGA is contemplating a similar move.

The advocates: Several candidates who are currently running for WGA West board seats have expressed the belief that YouTube-based programming is just as prominent as traditional studio fare. One of those candidates, Dahéli Hall, argued that the “non-union writers” in “the YouTube space” should “become partners and be protected” as a union.

Another advocate for including digital-native writers among the WGA’s numbers is Adam Conover, an incumbent board member with his own history as a content creator. A decade ago, in tandem with CollegeHumor, Conover led Adam Ruins Everything, a sassy explainer series that was eventually picked up by TruTV.

The question: YouTube-based writers would certainly benefit from stronger representation, and they increasingly share concerns with traditional writers (including over generative AI). But as it considers opening its gates, the WGA must confront a troubling conundrum. Given the sheer size and diversity of YouTube’s writing community, is it even possible for one advocacy group to serve creators as disparate as MrBeast and Ms. Rachel and a host of traditional Hollywood writers?

WATCH THIS

KPop Demon Hunters‘ short-form surge is good news for Sony

The Huntrix effect: If 2024 was Brat Summer, then 2025 is the summer of KPop Demon Hunters. The Netflix original has become an international smash hit, with multiple charting singles and a seemingly instant (and passionate) YouTube fanbase.

It’s easy to see why KPop Demon Hunters took the Google-affiliated video platform by storm. Shorts viewers already love K-pop, and Netflix’s musical hit is tailor-made for short-form clips.

Sony Pictures Animation was quick to capitalize on that proclivity by posting fanvid-style Shorts like this one—an approach that has since paid off in a major way. The production company’s official YouTube home currently claims 2.1 million subscribers, about one-third of whom (or 640,000) began following the channel during July 2025.

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Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Drew Baldwin, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen.