What Changed In The Last Five Years
Let’s rewind for a second.
Between 2020 and 2025, YouTube quietly pulled off a transformation that most people didn’t even clock, because it didn’t look like one big update. It was dozens of small ones that completely changed how we watch.
Shorts made vertical video feel natural. What started as YouTube’s “TikTok experiment” turned into something native, something you scroll without realizing it’s not TikTok at all.
Podcasts went visual. More people in the U.S. now say they listen to podcasts on YouTube than anywhere else. It sounds wrong until you realize that “listening” now means half-watching a video podcast while folding laundry.
Live streams stopped being niche gamer territory. By 2025, nearly a third of daily YouTube viewers were tuning into something live - concerts, Q&As, chill “study with me” streams. It’s background, community, and connection all rolled into one.
Shopping went creator-first. Forget “link in bio.” Half a million creators now sell directly through YouTube’s shopping tools, and yes, it actually works.
And the audience? Completely different. Gen Z doesn’t just watch creators; they trust them. They see them as personalities who make things, not companies trying to sell them stuff.
None of this happened overnight. But together, it transformed YouTube from “that video site” into something else entirely, to a place where entertainment, education, and economy blur into one endless scroll.
Standard Channels Are Not Enough
Here's what I'm observing at MIPCOM: the executives who are thriving aren't the ones panicking about whether they need a YouTube channel. They're the ones who've accepted a fundamental truth: standard distribution channels are no longer enough.
Traditional TV, theatrical releases, standard digital advertising - these still work. But on their own? They're insufficient.
You can have the best content in the world, but if you're only thinking about distribution and not about community, fandom, and social media, you're missing the entire point of how audiences engage with content in 2025.
This isn't just about having a YouTube channel or a TikTok account. It's about understanding that your audience doesn't just consume content anymore - they build communities around it. They create fan content. They discuss it. They make it part of their identity.
And if you don't understand social media, community building, and fandom dynamics, you're not just missing out on distribution channels. You're missing out on the entire relationship with your audience.
This is where experimentation becomes essential.
Experimentation Matters More Than Perfection
The panic I'm seeing at MIPCOM comes from people who think they need to master everything immediately. Launch a perfect YouTube strategy. Partner with the right creators. Go viral. Do it all flawlessly.
That's not how this works.
The brands and IPs that are succeeding aren't the ones with perfect strategies. They're the ones willing to experiment. To try things. To fail. To learn.
Experimentation means testing different formats to see what actually clicks, partnering with creators of all sizes and styles, and accepting that your first few videos might flop, and that’s okay. It’s about learning from real data instead of gut feelings, and being willing to look a little ridiculous while you figure it out, because that’s how every successful creator started - by being curious enough to keep trying.
Because here's the reality: you can't learn the creator economy from a conference session or a consultant deck. You learn it by doing it. By making mistakes. By seeing what your specific audience responds to on these platforms.
Standard channels give you predictability. The creator economy gives you potential. But you only unlock that potential through experimentation.
The Audience Is Different (And That's The Point)
One of the biggest mistakes I see brands making is treating YouTube and creator platforms like just another distribution channel. Put the same content everywhere and hope it works. It doesn't work because the audience is fundamentally different.
YouTube audiences aren't passively consuming. They're engaged. They comment. They build communities. They expect authenticity. They can smell corporate content from a mile away, and they'll skip it immediately.
They're not watching your content because they stumbled upon it during a commercial break. They're choosing to watch it. That means your content has to earn their attention in ways traditional media never had to.
This is why so many traditional media brands struggle on these platforms. They bring their TV sensibilities to YouTube and wonder why it doesn't work. The audience doesn't want polished, corporate, carefully focus-grouped content. They want real. They want personality. They want to feel like they're connecting with humans, not brands.
The Shift Everyone’s Feeling
We’re all chasing an audience that’s already left the building. The game changed quietly, because the crowd started making their own. You don’t need to be a creator to see it. Just scroll. Everyone’s experimenting, collaborating, remixing, breaking things, and moving faster than the industries trying to define them.
The era of “perfect strategy” is over. Movement wins. Curiosity wins. The people who test, tweak, and learn in public are already miles ahead of those still drafting their next PowerPoint.
Traditional channels still matter, but they’re no longer the main stage - they’re the reruns. The real action happens in comments, duets, fan edits, podcasts, and creator collabs. That’s where culture moves now.
The creator economy isn’t a threat. It’s a mirror. It’s showing us that attention doesn’t wait, communities don’t ask for permission, and audiences don’t sit still. The question isn’t whether you’re ready for it. It’s whether you even noticed it has already started without you.