03:07:37 · Reed Duchscher, John Coogan
[03:07:37] S9: Yeah. Yeah. If you like, during COVID, everyone was seeing Charli D'Amelio dance videos. Like, she went from zero to a 100,000,000. That's very challenging to do in today's world just because your content gets fed to the people that only wanna watch that, and your content doesn't get seen by people who don't want it. Mhmm. I think the the platforms have actually done the same thing across the board where they don't really want creators to break out and become a Mr. Beast anymore. They'd rather like widen out the mid tier. And so they'd rather have, you know, YouTube for example, think would rather have 10,000 creators with 5,000,000 subscribers than have a 100 creators with a 100,000,000 subscribers. Like, they don't they don't want that. I think a lot of that is like they don't they also don't want creators to have any leverage against the platforms. Yeah. And so it's been interesting seeing that like shift over the last three years to this like, you know, push down a little bit further and make make it harder for people to really break out. [03:08:28] S0: And what is the nature of of MrBeast's leverage over YouTube? Is it just that if he says YouTube isn't treating creators, you know, correctly, that'll be front page news? Or is it something more about the structure of his business?
03:08:28 · John Coogan, Reed Duchscher
[03:08:28] S0: And what is the nature of of MrBeast's leverage over YouTube? Is it just that if he says YouTube isn't treating creators, you know, correctly, that'll be front page news? Or is it something more about the structure of his business? [03:08:42] S9: I think a lot of it is when, you know, there is, like, negative press. And we we saw this for those people that are like OG YouTubers like PewDiePie kind of went through this whole like adpocalypse back in the day. Yes. Yes. That was very negative on the platform as a whole. Sure. And so I think when you when you get individuals that are at the top of those platforms and they start to almost overshadow the platform because they've gotten so big Mhmm. That when negative press starts to come out about them, now advertisers are pulling out. Mhmm. We started to see this a little bit on Twitch Yeah. Because it is a very top heavy platform. And so I think that has a lot to do with it. You know, I think in in Jimmy's case, like, for the longest time, you would go on Trending Page and he was just dominating Trending Page. And so it's you know, now it's like people don't really go on Trending Page. But even on on homepages now, there's a lot of variety of different content. That's ultimately what the platforms want. They're trying to widen out their fan base
03:09:30 · John Coogan, Reed Duchscher
[03:09:30] S0: as well. Talk about the evolution of Twitch. It's, you know, you gave us the basics on TikTok. Twitch is interesting, because when I see what Google is doing, YouTube is, like, front and center in so much of what, YouTube does. And yet I feel like with Twitch, it's not really the front and center, you know, star property for Amazon as a corporation. And I'm wondering if that reflects just it being a little bit more arm's length, a little bit newer of an acquisition maybe. Mean, it's still been a decade. But what what's the vibe on Twitch these days? [03:10:06] S9: Man, we could have a whole conversation about this. I think your your observation is correct that Twitch inside of Amazon, they haven't really cared about it. You know, they'll they'll do deals now that is predominantly focused on Amazon Prime Video Yeah. And Twitch is is somewhat ignored. You know, I I do think like it's such a small like peanut inside this Amazon ecosystem that even if Twitch's revenue quadruples, doesn't really do anything Yeah. For for Amazon as a whole. [03:10:32] S0: So It also has this weird dynamic where, and correct me if I'm wrong, but there might be a lot of money being made on Twitch, but a lot of it is driven by the Twitch Prime program, which is not actually new dollars for Amazon. Whereas, subscribers on YouTube YouTube, premium subscribers, that's just actual dollars that people are paying.
03:10:32 · John Coogan, Reed Duchscher, Jordi Hays
[03:10:32] S0: So It also has this weird dynamic where, and correct me if I'm wrong, but there might be a lot of money being made on Twitch, but a lot of it is driven by the Twitch Prime program, which is not actually new dollars for Amazon. Whereas, subscribers on YouTube YouTube, premium subscribers, that's just actual dollars that people are paying. [03:10:52] S9: Yeah. You're saying like net new. Or I can explain that for a second. So a couple years ago, Amazon released something where where every Amazon Twitch or sorry. Every Amazon Prime person gets a free Twitch sub. Yeah. So they can essentially use their Amazon Prime to subscribe to some person's Twitch, which which would be $5 a month Mhmm. In most cases. So what you're saying is like, no, that's no longer net new revenue. They've never released how many actual Twitch like subscribers are like actual Amazon Prime. Oh, So we have no idea. Oh, we don't. But I would guess it's a large number. [03:11:23] S0: It felt like it was like, at least in the early days, it was like 80% because it was like Yeah. My parents have have my parents have Amazon Prime. [03:11:30] S1: Did anybody try to make a stream that's just like make me a millionaire and they're just streaming and they're just trying to get people to like use their one Amazon sub? Well, I [03:11:37] S0: mean, tell some stories about Subathons.
03:11:37 · John Coogan, Reed Duchscher, Jordi Hays
[03:11:37] S0: mean, tell some stories about Subathons. [03:11:39] S9: Yeah. I mean, the Subathons became a thing couple years ago. Kai's obviously had the most notarrival one. They had MafiaThon, which led into the third version of that that we did this last year. And it was, you know, thirty one straight days, twenty four hours a day. He had he broke a million subscribers over a thirty one day period. But subathons are not a new thing. But people using Amazon Prime to subscribe to Twitch has been around for a while. Mhmm. And that and that is like the hook that a lot of people use. They'll be like, use your one Amazon Prime sub on me. Mhmm. And but the And so Twitch does, we know kinda what their advertising revenue is, but we have no idea what the makeup of like a Twitch Prime subscriber is. Yeah. But it it has been disappointing. Think from someone who sits on the creator side that, you know, whose company represents the majority of of the Twitch streamers, You know, YouTube leans so heavily or Google leans so heavily into YouTube as as a platform underneath their umbrella where Twitch does feel like this, like, kind of like band of misfit toy inside of Amazon that they don't really care about, don't really talk about. Even when they do the, you know, the the NASCAR deal and they're negotiating to get all these rights for the NBA, it doesn't even feel like Twitch is in those conversations. That that's also been frustrating for us too because for a lot of guys that are streaming on Twitch, that's their main distribution. [03:12:55] S1: Have you tried to buy Twitch?
03:12:55 · Jordi Hays, Reed Duchscher, John Coogan
[03:12:55] S1: Have you tried to buy Twitch? [03:12:56] S9: Think that we would have to [03:12:59] S1: because I know, no, and I and I I know like it sounds crazy, but there's a world where you have all of the talent, like a lot of the most important talent on the platform. There's a lot of investors out there that if they would happily probably if you're like, hey, this is being under, you know, this underappreciated Amazon and we can turn it I don't know what what wasn't it like a billion dollar acquisition? Yep. Like, damn it. Like, that that feels like worth well more than that. [03:13:25] S0: The psychology of the $99.09 $9.09 is so funny. It's like, clearly, was some weird board fight. [03:13:31] S9: I just don't know why Amazon would sell it. Like, why would they part ways with it? It would only ultimately make them look bad if someone could come in and and actually operate this. So [03:13:40] S0: I don't know. Yeah. We yeah. [03:13:42] S9: We were joking about first in line.