In a Decoder podcast episode, comedian and YouTuber Adam Conover speaks with host Nilay Patel about how streaming and online video have reshaped the entertainment industry. Conover argues that Hollywood studios, in their rush to compete with Netflix and HBO, effectively abandoned entire categories of television programming, ceding that ground to YouTube. This matters because it challenges the popular narrative that platforms like YouTube have democratised media production and distribution.

Conover, who moved from CollegeHumor to cable television with Adam Ruins Everything, then to Netflix, and back to YouTube where he now hosts the podcast Factually!, contends that YouTube is actually a harsher gatekeeper than traditional networks ever were, since creators cannot negotiate with an opaque recommendation algorithm the way they could with a network executive. He also discusses his discomfort with the term "creator", his role as a board member of the Writers Guild of America West, and how he now runs his YouTube podcasting work as a small business with employees and freelancers amid a heavily disrupted media landscape.