Quantity and atomization build YouTube’s business; power laws are important to the creators, but replicable quantity is the platform’s beating heart. This is not true for a streamer where hits are the beating heart, and where power laws impact the company’s bottom line, not just the creatives whose shows and films appear.

Podcasters are islands in... See more

success is defined by affinity with the new constant presence that personality brings to a platform. The more time that audiences spend with personalities across different platforms, the more content they may seek out, and the more concrete that streamer’s brand becomes to a viewer navigating a very fragmented, busy environment.

Netflix brought in a chief content officer like Bela Bajaria (with a history in network) because the company wanted more hits to drive subscriptions. Programs like WWE Raw bring in a number of locked in, live viewers that advertisers can choose to target. Critically, as analysts have pointed out over the last few years, Netflix has started to... See more