YouTube recently announced two new features.

"Veo" will allow users to create AI-generated clips and backgrounds for Shorts. And "Hype" is a new way for fans to support small and medium-sized channels.

The former seems like a bad but inevitable feature that will flood YouTube with synthetic, low-effort content. But the latter could be a major leap forward in audience-first content discovery.

Hype gives all users 3 votes every week. When cast for small creators, they earn points (and potentially revenue) that puts them in a global leaderboard. It's a non-algorithmic, human-powered way to surface the platform's best content, and divert some of the attention economy away from YouTube's 1% of large creators who dominate the home page and suggested videos.

Plus: The FTC notices that social media business models are horrible, and the MrBeast lawsuits have begun.

Links referenced in this episode:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/19/24249073/ftc-data-retention-privacy-report-facebook-meta-youtube-reddit

https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/18/youtube-shorts-to-integrate-veo-google-ai-video-model/

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/18/24247995/youtube-hype-creators

https://variety.com/2024/digital/news/mrbeast-amazon-sued-beast-games-contestants-class-action-1236148181/

https://newsletter.tubefilter.com/p/roblox-youtube-add-yours-shopify

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