YouTube's 2026 Plans, Netflix Vertical, TikTok America + Twitch's Mobile Defaults

Hello, welcome to this week's newsletter! Everything is becoming TV! It's something that started over the last couple of years, with YouTube pushing hard to improve the 'living room' experience and compete with Netflix. Instagram jumped in the deep end in December, and Substack (a newsletter platform) just launched a TV app this weekend. There are a variety of reasons for this, but one I don't think people are considering is the rising cost of computer components and raw materials. As a side effect of the rush into AI, the demand for GPUs, RAM, and other components for commercial usage has skyrocketed. That has put immense pressure on consumer tech. There may be a not-too-distant future when having a computer is no longer financially viable for many households. In fact, Jeff Bezos is banking on it. So, if the future of video content consumption is limited to your phone and the big screen in your living room, these platforms that focused on it early should benefit, while those who neglect their TV apps will continue to fall behind. As a creator, the play is to diversify your content so it can be viewed on platforms investing in a different future. It's the only way to approach the uncertain times ahead. And with that, let's get into all the news!

🟪 TWITCH

• Twitch will soon experiment with letting you choose your landing page (Following, Temu TikTok Feed, or Clips Feed). This is how it should have been on launch.
• Twitch CEO Dan Clancy is launching a podcast called Let's Chat.
• Twitch launched a sponsorship for partners that offered no payment, and instead required your audience to pay for 5+ gifts to get a bonus sub. This is a new low for Twitch. If creators continue to do these below-market-rate deals, we all lose to this creator hostility that Twitch is displaying.
• Riot Games stated that Twitch shouldn't have positioned this as a sponsorship, but that the campaign was intentional as part of their current experiments.
• New Global Emote: NoField
• Twitch's Discount Promotions are now operated as a quarterly scheme to force creators to spread out the 5+ Gift Subs promotions throughout the year. Starting in February, creators receive 3 tokens for a combined 24 hours of discount time. They'll also soon launch new reminders for remaining hours and tokens.

🟥 YOUTUBE

• YouTube shared its plans for 2026. Their plans include:
  • Improving the YouTube TV product.
  • New Shorts formats (image posts).
  • New settings for parents with kids.
  • New monetization in Shopping and Brand Deals.
  • New AI tools (including creating your own likeness).
  • Handling AI slop + transparency.

⬛ TIKTOK

• TikTok America is now operating as its own entity, following the sale's finalization on January 23.
• TikTok America is now collecting much more data about users, including your precise location, sexual orientation, transgender or nonbinary status, and citizenship/immigration status.
• TikTok Canada has won a legal battle to continue operating in Canada.
• TikTok quietly launched a micro-drama app called PineDrama.

🔲 SOCIAL PLATFORMS

• Threads has overtaken Twitter in mobile daily active users.
• Threads is rolling out ads globally this week.
• Twitter is launching Bluesky-inspired Starter Packs, but they'll be operated by the company rather than the users.