Vimeo Picks Fight with YouTube & Netflix

Plus: TikTok ban extension; A tool to help you focus

Joey Padgett
April 07, 2025

Welcome back to Forests Over Trees, your tech strategy newsletter. It’s time to zoom-out, connect dots, and (try to) predict the future.

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Here’s today’s plan:

Photo by Nathanaël Desmeules

What’s up: Vimeo launched Vimeo Streaming, a no-code platform that lets video creators build their own streaming service. It comes with tiered memberships, AI-powered translations, piracy protection, and analytics tools. Vimeo CEO Philip Moyer said the goal is to give creators “more ways to monetize their content, and higher grade security.”
So what: Wow! What a huge deal for video creators. Rather than growing an audience they don’t own on YouTube, or convincing execs at Netflix to run a pilot, they can DIY. That means direct audience ownership, higher pay, and more creative freedom… YouTube is probably still critical as a discovery engine to find new fans, and getting a Netflix show unlocks a different level of monetization and reach, but I predict this Vimeo product (or copycat responses from YouTube, etc.) explodes in popularity.

What’s up: In response to the latest tariffs and a re-ignited trade war with China, China is withholding the approval it nearly gave to spin-off TikTok to US investors. According to the Associated Press, Chinese leaders had nearly approved a deal to sell the majority stake of TikTok to US investors, retaining a minority stake for Bytedance. In response, President Trump signed an EO to extend the ban/sale deadline by another 75 days.
So what: It’s smart for China to use TikTok as a bargaining chip. They know that Trump (and most Americans!) are irrationally attached to it, so they’ll want to extract more tariff concessions before putting a sale back on the table. And as a side note, it’s interesting to track consumer sentiment re: banning TikTok. Without any change to the national security risks, a Pew survey shows only 33% of Americans support a ban now, down from 50% in March 2023.

Before I joined Amazon, I spent 7 years in consulting.

And even though the symptoms varied, nearly every Fortune 100 client I worked with had the same core problem — a lack of focus.

They’d say,

“X isn’t working, so we’re trying five different things to fix it.”

Seemed smart — until they’d say the same thing about problems Y and Z… with ten more fixes planned.

Their real blocker?

“We just don’t have time to get all this done!”

Sound familiar?

If your roadmap feels like a graveyard of half-finished bets — or your team’s doing a lot without much to show for it — this tool is for you.

The North Star Filter is a 1-page exercise to:

Airbnb learned this lesson the hard way. You don’t have to.

Premium Subscribers — access the toolkit here.

Haven’t gone premium yet? Join here.

Being grateful for rejection — Loved this reflection from fellow UCLA MBA alum John Lee about the ups and downs of trying to do something new. And the video montage of rejections is way too relatable.
Analog vs. digital — Minecraft had a movie promo event at a mall in Los Angeles last week, and I can’t stop thinking about it. My takeaway? Amid a sea of cheap online launches and announcements, in-person really stands out.

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