In the ever-changing landscape of digital video, few startups made as bold a bet as Vessel. Launched in 2015 by Hulu co-founders Jason Kilar and Richard Tom, it tried to rewrite the rules of creator monetization—an arms race that still rages today across TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Rumble, and Kick. Backed by over $130 million and promising creators up to 20 times YouTube’s payouts, Vessel aimed high. But just 18 months later, it was shuttered and absorbed into Verizon’s ill-fated go90 experiment.
The Promise of Early Access
Vessel’s key proposition was “early access.” For $2.99 a month, fans could watch their favorite YouTubers’ videos 72 hours before they appeared anywhere else. This paid model coexisted with a free ad-supported version, giving users the option to wait. To sweeten the deal for creators, Vessel offered significantly better revenue terms than YouTube, up to $50 per 1,000 views and $7 for every fan that converted into a paid subscriber. YouTube, by comparison, paid around $2.20 per 1,000 views.
Vessel aimed to be mobile-first and optimized its apps for a smooth, millennial-friendly viewing experience. The product was clean, polished, and innovative. Ads were limited to five seconds and often took the form of “motion posters,” full-screen skippable ad experiences that sat somewhere between static images and video. Backed by major brands like Jaguar and Cheetos, Vessel attracted a high-profile advertiser base despite modest viewership.
Courting Creators with Big Promises
Many of YouTube’s top stars signed on, enticed by the revenue model and the promise of a platform designed for creators. Early partners included LinusTechTips, Shane Dawson, Good Mythical Morning, Caspar Lee, Epic Meal Time, and Rhett & Link, with some reportedly receiving upfront licensing fees close to half a million dollars. Over time, Vessel expanded its library to include content from publishers like Mashable, The New York Times, Discovery, and A+E Networks.
The company also incentivized creators with a generous revenue share. It took only 30% of ad income compared to YouTube’s 45% and returned 60% of subscription revenue based on time spent viewing. It was a creator-first approach to solve long-standing monetization challenges.
The value gap Vessel couldn’t bridge
Despite generous terms for creators, Vessel struggled to attract a large paying audience. According to comScore, U.S. web traffic dropped from 160,000 monthly users at launch to just 48,000 eight months later. Download numbers for its Android app remained under 100,000, and the iOS app never cracked the top 200 entertainment apps. For many creators, the returns were negligible. Some reported earning only a fraction of what they made on YouTube and saw little incentive to push fans toward a paywall when the same content would be free just a few days later. Vessel’s bet was that fans would pay for when they could watch, not what they could watch. But early access wasn’t enough. Without true exclusives or breakout originals, the 72-hour window had little value. Most viewers just waited—because content wasn’t scarce, attention was.
Part of the problem was the value proposition. While early access was intriguing, it was not compelling enough for most viewers to justify a subscription. The content was not exclusive in the traditional sense. It was time-gated, which limited its perceived worth. Unlike Netflix or Hulu, Vessel lacked a deep original programming library that could serve as a long-term draw.
Investor Backing and Operating Burn
Vessel raised $132.5 million in venture capital from top-tier firms like Benchmark, Greylock, Bezos Expeditions, and IVP. That money helped fund creator deals and marketing efforts, but the high burn rate created pressure to scale quickly. By 2016, some of Vessel’s content partnerships were quietly ending, suggesting that the economics were no longer adding up.
Still, the team remained optimistic. With a leadership bench stacked with over 20 Hulu alumni, including business head J.P. Colaco, the company believed it was still early in the journey. The platform pursued growth internationally, where most of its mobile app traffic originated. But international traffic is notoriously hard to monetize, especially when paid subscriptions are involved.
The Verizon Acquisition and Shutdown
On October 26, 2016, Verizon announced that it had acquired Vessel. The acquisition was part of Verizon’s broader push into digital video, which included previous purchases of AOL, OnCue, Complex, and a stake in AwesomenessTV. The goal was to fold Vessel’s technology and team into go90, Verizon’s mobile video app. CTO Richard Tom joined Verizon to lead digital entertainment technology. Jason Kilar exited following the sale.
Vessel was officially shut down on October 31, 2016. Subscribers were refunded, and creators returned to YouTube and other platforms. Verizon hoped to integrate Vessel’s discovery and subscription infrastructure into its products, but go90 itself was discontinued in 2018.
Legacy and Lessons Learned
Vessel’s short lifespan does not diminish the ambition behind the venture. The platform dared to question YouTube’s dominance and attempted to realign incentives between fans, creators, and platforms. While it did not succeed commercially, Vessel demonstrated that creators were eager for better terms and fans were willing to pay under the right conditions.
Its failure highlights a core truth in streaming: content is king, but convenience and scale determine longevity. Asking fans to pay for content they could soon get for free required more than goodwill. It needed exclusivity, a breakthrough user experience, and sustained marketing. Vessel had the team, the vision, and the capital, but not the time to see it through.
In hindsight, Vessel served as both a cautionary tale and a stepping stone. It inspired future experiments in creator monetization, including Patreon, Substack, and YouTube Premium. For the creators involved, it was a reminder that platform loyalty ultimately rests with the audience, and most audiences prefer free. Vessel proved creators will chase better economics—but audiences only follow when exclusivity meets scale.
