Online creators and their business models were on our mind this week after mega-popular YouTuber MrBeast announced that his company is buying fintech startup Step, followed by Hollywood studios sending a flurry of cease-and-desist letters to ByteDance over the launch of its new video generation model Seedance 2.0.

Those seemingly unconnected headlines suggest a media landscape in the midst of transformative change, as popular YouTubers look to diversify their business models, with the threat and promise of increasingly powerful generative AI tools on the horizon.

On the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Rebecca Bellan, and I debated what’s next for the creator economy, and whether there will be any room for the next generation of creators to stand out.

“What’s the next saturation point?” Kirsten wondered. “Not all of these folks can go out and spin off products. So then does the pool of successful creators just simply get smaller? Or will something else happen, technologically speaking, or a different medium that will allow them to find an audience to make money off of?”

You can read a preview of our conversation, edited for length and clarity, below.

Anthony: [The news] led our colleague Lauren to do this great piece talking about the creator business model in general, and this sense that they aren’t just relying on ad revenue anymore. I think it’s still a pretty big part of their business, but she broke down a number of the most popular YouTubers and noted that each of them is expanding — usually into e-commerce, but also into other revenue streams.

Mr. Beast, for example, actually has this line of food products, including chocolate, that is making hundreds of millions of dollars and it was actually profitable for him in 2024, whereas his media business was losing money. All that was pretty wild to me.

Kirsten: If Mr. Beast can’t be profitable with his media company, who can? To me, that was a stunning stat.

I am not surprised that the whole ad revenue biz game is not working out necessarily for creators and influencers because it’s just reached a saturation point. I guess my big question is, what’s the next saturation point? Not all of these folks can go out and spin off products. So then does the pool of successful creators just simply get smaller? Or will something else happen, technologically speaking, or a different medium that will allow them to find an audience to make money off of?

Rebecca: It’s interesting, there’s a lot of ways you can think about what else could happen, right? Maybe they’ll create digital twins of themselves and put their digital twins into a bunch of different situations that can make them [other kinds of] money.

But again, going back to this not being surprising, these people are now celebrities, right? Someone told me on the phone recently that a lot of [the] younger generation, they don’t know our celebrities, they know TikTok celebrities. And we’ve seen celebrities for years pass off products and make money off of them, right? I used to watch Rachel [Ray], she was a celebrity chef and she sold her EVOO or her olive oil.

We Slow Ventures on [Equity] sometime last year. They have a creator fund and basically what they’re doing is they’ve raised a VC fund to essentially back creators with their businesses, if they have maybe a niche following, maybe they’re really into woodworking and here’s their collection of chisels, I don’t know.

I think it’s an interesting path forward and it’s something that we see as journalists: How do we also try to be creators and make a brand of ourselves that we could diversify our revenue. It sounds horrible to say it out loud like that.

Anthony: I’m smiling, but it’s the smile of somebody whose soul is slowly turning into ash inside.

So we took a break from talking about AI, but I will obligatorily bring AI back into the conversation. Obviously one of the other related developments over the past week or so is that ByteDance, which is the Chinese company that launched TikTok and is still an investor — we won’t get into all of that — they launched a new version of their model, Seedance 2.0, which at least initially was primarily only available to Chinese users.

But you started to see people posting videos generated by Seedance, including this viral video of Brad Pitt fighting Tom Cruise. That prompted both this general conversation of: Is Hollywood doomed? And then more concretely, a bunch of Hollywood studios, including Netflix, sending ByteDance letters being like, “You cannot do this, you’re basically allowing all your users to generate videos using all of our IP, all of our movie stars.” And for a couple of days, there was no response at all from ByteDance, but then they did say, “Sorry, sorry, sorry, for some reason we launched this without any real guardrails, but we’re gonna do better in the future.”

Kirsten: So the timing of this is just perfect because I happen to be editing a story right now that Rebecca wrote. It has nothing to do with Seedance, but it does have to do with AI and filmmaking. So I’m going to give a future ]rops to Rebecca for being timely about that. Rebecca, I know you have a lot to say on that, besides that Hollywood is upset. Is it more complicated than that?

Rebecca: Yeah, definitely. I mean, tying this back to the creators thing, I think that a lot of people are going to be using these tools to produce all kinds of content and we’re just going to be absolutely flooded. And that’s going to be intense. 

But when we talk about, whether it’s creating films or ads or just content in general using AI video tools, I think there’s this tension between one, this is going to produce a whole lot of low effort slop versus two, it could also democratize access for a lot of people who don’t have funds or budgets or teams to share a lot of the stories that they want to tell. 

And also, if you’re a small business and you want to create a little shampoo ad — to be on the nose about it, because there’s a shampoo ad that’s going viral — or you sell coffee and you want to make a little ad for it, [this] could give you the tools to do that. Is that a bad thing? Is it not a bad thing? Do we need more content in the world? There’s a few avenues to walk down. 

Kirsten: Is it a bad thing, Anthony?

Anthony: In terms of the creator side of it, my general feeling is [that] the response to a lot of this kind of slop — frankly, a lot of it is slop, and I think that’s going to continue to be the case — is going to be this valuing of authenticity. And so there is the opportunity for these big creators is be less about the idea of like, “I have digital twins of myself,” but [instead,] “No, I’m the real Mr. Beast, not the digital simulacra wandering around.” 

And I think it’s also telling that – of course, every social network has ups and downs, but that OpenAI’s Sora, from what I understand, had skyrocketed at the beginning and then has been struggling to hold on to users more recently, because there is a certain emptiness to the experience when you just feel like there’s not an authentic human being on the other side. 

But I think it’s also going to make the landscape much more challenging, both for the established creators to monetize […] and then I think it’s going to be especially hard for new creators because there’s just going to be so much more stuff. Trying to actually break out is going to become super difficult.

Battery life is excellent—lasting about two weeks per charge in our tests—and unlike Oral-B, the 4100 shuts off after the two-minute timer. It’s also designed with BrushSync technology, which tracks how long you’ve been using your brush head and how much pressure you’re applying. A light on the handle and a beep remind you when it’s time for a replacement—a thoughtful touch.

Unlike the Oral-B brush’s standard black and white, the Sonicare 4100 also comes in pink, azure blue, and dark forest green, which might not seem like much, but even the smallest pop of color can make a mundane task feel a little less … mundane.

Best Oscillating

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• High-power motor
• Built-in 2-minute timer with quadrant pulses
• Small round brush head to reach molars
• Durable build

TIRED

• Shorter battery life than its competitors
• Can feel intense

The Oral-B Pro 1000 has been around since 2012, outlasting and outperforming flashier models because it’s powerful and priced right. The high-power motor stays focused on your teeth, so you won’t feel that hand-numbing vibration along the handle. If you’re switching from a manual toothbrush, the intensity might be startling initially, but you’ll adjust.

With just one button and three brushing modes (Daily Clean, Whiten, and Sensitive), the Pro 1000 keeps it simple. A built-in timer pulses every 30 seconds to remind you to move to another quadrant of your mouth, with a triple pulse at the two-minute mark. Unlike some competitors, it won’t shut off automatically, which is handy if you like to keep brushing. Oral-B says the battery lasts about a week, but we squeezed out 10 days in testing. That’s decent, though not as long as some other models.

Like all of Oral-B’s electric brushes, the Pro 1000 uses an oscillating brush head, which is a small, circular design that gets between teeth more effectively than larger oval-shaped bristles. Round brush heads tend to be easier to maneuver for those with smaller jaws, and they reach the back of the farthest molars. Though we haven’t tried all of them, most Pro models are a good bet.

Apple has invited the tech press to a “special Apple experience” on March 4, but it might unfold a bit differently than the company’s standard press event.

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that instead of announcing everything at a single keynote, Apple is planning a “three-day flurry of announcements” — presumably announced online, and culminating in the March 4 “experience” that will consist of be three events in New York, London, and Shanghai, where the press will be offered a chance to get hands-on with the upcoming products.

Similarly, Daring Fireball’s John Gruber speculated that the experience could be “a hands-on thing with in-person demos.”

Apple will reportedly be announcing at least five new products during that time, including a low-cost MacBook. Other reported possibilities: the iPhone 17e, an iPad Air with an M4 chip, a new entry-level iPad, and an upgraded MacBook Air and new MacBook Pro models. Gurman said all of those products are due this spring, but he sounded less certain about which ones will be announced when.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms episode 6 is out now and, with its arrival, the show’s debut season has come to a close.

Six weeks after the increasingly popular show premiered, fans — including you, I bet — have fallen in love with its underdog pairing of Dunk and Egg. So, HBO would be silly to call time on their Westerosi adventures, right?

• Government-backed funding gives Chinese firms significant operational advantages
• Lower-cost AI models from China appeal to developing nations worldwide
• Microsoft is investing billions to strengthen AI tools and infrastructure globally

Microsoft President Brad Smith has warned American technology companies may face growing challenges from Chinese competitors that benefit from substantial state subsidies.

Beijing has provided multi-billion-dollar support, including a national AI fund and energy vouchers, to reduce operational costs for domestic companies.

Two years ago, I got my first taste of the Six Nations watching Wales fall to France at the Principality Stadium. But this year I’m potentially missing the Six Nations 2026 entirely.

Fortunately, Norton VPN is currently on offer. Two-year plans start at $2.49 per month, paid upfront as $59.76 for the Standard plan, while the Plus and Ultimate plans now cost $83.76 and $107.76, respectively.

With a VPN, you’re able to securely connect to servers in your home country wherever you are. So, if you’re traveling, you can connect back home and watch all your favorite shows on your usual subscriptions. For me, that means catching up on the Six Nations with BBC iPlayer seamlessly.

Norton VPN recently got a bunch of improvements. Its speeds are similar to the very fastest VPNs, it’s got super-simple apps, and it unblocks content as well as many of the best streaming VPNs. What’s more, our exclusive TechRadar deal means you get more simultaneous connections than ever: 10 for Standard and Plus plans, and 20 on Ultimate.

While Norton VPN isn’t ranked among the best VPNs quite yet, a Standard plan is cheaper than most of the best providers, particularly since ExpressVPN’s deal has now ended. You’ll hardly notice the performance difference, but if you’re keen on getting the very best, then definitely check out NordVPN.

Norton also comes with a huge 60-day money-back guarantee. This is double what you get from top VPNs such as Surfshark or Proton VPN.

Although Norton VPN isn’t quite breaking into our top 5 VPNs yet, it’s getting close. It’s also currently around 50 cents a month cheaper than the likes of Proton and NordVPN, though Surfshark remains the best cheap VPN.

If you’re new to VPNs and are unlikely to push it to its limits, you’ll rarely notice the difference, though ExpressVPN and NordVPN are faster if you’re focused on performance.

What Norton does bring is potential. The rate at which the provider is adding features and improving its performance is unmatched. So, by signing up now, you could be getting a bargain deal on a VPN that’s surpassing the very best in a matter of months.

Samsung released the Galaxy Tab A11+ late last year, and it quietly exceeded people’s expectations with what it does at a reasonable price for an Android tablet. Priced at $210 (was $250) for the 6GB RAM and 128GB storage edition, this 11-inch slate includes a slew of enhancements that feel like a game changer in a market where corners are typically cut.

Let’s start with the basics: an 11-inch display with 1920 x 1200 resolution and a refresh rate of up to 90Hz. Scrolling is smooth as silk, movies play without judder or stutter, and the larger screen is ideal for binge watching, reading, or light surfing, which is far superior to many other low-cost options with smaller screens that do not refresh as quickly. The brightness and colors remain decent for indoor use, even if the LCD screen can never equal the deep contrast of the more expensive AMOLED devices.

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Samsung Galaxy Tab A11+ 6GB RAM, 128GB Storage, Optimized Performance, Long Lasting Battery, Expandable…

• POWER FOR ALL YOU DO: Galaxy Tab A11+ gives your family the optimal performance they need for all their day-to-day activities. Power through tasks…
• CHARGES UP FAST. LASTS FOR HOURS: Galaxy Tab A11+ keeps your family going with a long-lasting battery that’s perfect for browsing, streaming and…
• MEMORY AND STORAGE THAT KEEP UP: With up to 8GB of memory and 256GB⁶ of storage, Galaxy Tab A11+ gives your family the space and speed to multitask…

Performance is centered around a MediaTek Dimensity 7300 chipset, which is paired with 6GB of RAM. The benchmarks indicate significant improvements over prior budget Samsung tablets, and as a bonus, you get 128GB of storage that can be upgraded by microSD card up to a whopping 2TB. This alleviates much of the worry of running out of space for images, apps, or downloaded information.

Another factor that contributes to the tablet’s appeal is its battery life; the 7,040mAh cell will last you a full day of mixed use and, if you’re lucky, 15 hours of video playback or light use. When you run out of power, you can put it in and get 25W fast charging. Samsung’s quad speakers, which are calibrated with Dolby Atmos, offer rich, room-filling sound that truly outperforms the tablet’s weight class. So you can fully enjoy your movies or music sessions without feeling the need to plug in your headphones.

Samsung has also included some thoughtful features that truly enhance the experience. Google Gemini integration adds a great AI assistant that allows you to perform rapid searches, get summaries, and receive creative prompts directly on the device. Circle to Search allows you to circle anything on the screen to obtain instant context. To top it all off, you get security updates for a full 7 years, which is a rather unusual offer at this price point and a major deal for keeping your tablet safe and up to date long after you’ve purchased it.

NASA has once again postponed the launch of Artemis II, the crewed lunar flyby mission, setting a new launch window for April. Although March 6 had been tentatively planned as the launch date, the US space agency revealed that a problem with the rocket has caused further delay.

According to NASA administrator Jared Isaacman, the failure was due to an interruption in the helium flow in the interim cryogenic propulsion stage of the Space Launch System (SLS). The helium flow is essential for purging the engines and pressurizing the fuel tanks. This system had functioned correctly in the two dress rehearsals conducted this month, but the failure occurred during a routine operation.

Due to the nature of the problem, NASA engineers will have to fix it from the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), so there’s no way to proceed with the March launch window. The rocket is on its way back to the hangar.

“I understand people are disappointed by this development,” the official stated on his X account. “That disappointment is felt most by the team at NASA, who have been working tirelessly to prepare for this great endeavor. During the 1960s, when NASA achieved what most thought was impossible, and what has never been repeated since, there were many setbacks.”

Will Artemis II be able to embark on its mission in April? NASA reported that rapid preparations have allowed it to potentially preserve the April launch window in the event of a reversal. It all depends on what the data, the repair efforts, and how the schedule comes together in the coming days.

Artemis II: The Setbacks

The mission had its first launch window between February 6 and 11. However, during the wet dress rehearsal (WDR), which is a full rehearsal with fuel, the team detected small hydrogen leaks during refueling and some minor technical glitches. After analyzing the situation, NASA concluded that the risk was considerable and could endanger the lives of the astronauts, so it decided to postpone the launch.

A second dress rehearsal, conducted on February 19, was successful. In a statement, the space agency explained that it loaded 700,000 gallons of liquid propellant with no leaks. “During the test, teams closely monitored liquid hydrogen fueling operations, which proved challenging during previous tests. Hydrogen gas concentrations remained under allowable limits, giving engineers confidence in new seals installed in an interface used to route fuel to the rocket,” NASA said.

At a subsequent press conference, mission representatives confirmed to the media that the new tentative liftoff date would be March 6. However, on February 20, the team failed to get helium to flow through the vehicle, a failure that also occurred during testing of the Artemis I mission. Isaacman noted that the cause could be due to a faulty filter, valve or connector plate.

“There are many differences between the 1960s and today, and expectations should rightfully be high after the time and expense invested in this program,” Isaacman said in his post. “I will say again, the President created Artemis as a program that will far surpass what America achieved during Apollo. We will return in the years ahead, we will build a Moon base, and undertake what should be continuous missions to and from the lunar environment.”

When it eventually launches, the Orion capsule will travel farther than any other manned spacecraft during its 10-day mission, surpassing on the sixth day the record of 400,171 kilometers set by Apollo 13. The return will conclude with Orion’s landing in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, California.

Although there will be no lunar landing—that feat will fall to the Artemis III mission—the second launch is of crucial importance. Its success will demonstrate that NASA has the technical capabilities to return to the moon and begin a new phase of space exploration.

This story originally appeared in WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.

Owners of handheld gaming PCs powered by AMD’s Ryzen Z1 chips may have reason to feel uneasy. What started as a support message regarding the Lenovo Legion Go has quickly turned into a broader concern that driver updates for the Ryzen Z1 and Z1 Extreme platform may have slowed or even paused across multiple devices.

The situation first came to light when Lenovo Korea reportedly informed customers that the original Legion Go would not receive further BIOS or driver updates. Instead, users were advised to rely on Windows Update and generic AMD drivers, where compatible. Now, additional reports suggest the issue may extend to ASUS’s popular ROG Ally, another flagship Ryzen Z1 Extreme handheld. According to user reports, the device appears to be stuck on graphics drivers dating back to August 2025, with no newer releases despite several major game launches since then.

Is handheld driver support quietly stalling?

This detail matters because the ROG Ally and Legion Go are the two most recognizable Windows gaming handhelds powered by AMD’s custom Z1 silicon. If both devices are relying on older drivers, it suggests the slowdown could be happening at the platform level rather than being isolated to a single manufacturer.

Adding to the confusion, Lenovo forum posts also warn users not to install Legion Go S drivers on the original Legion Go. Interestingly, the Legion Go S uses the Z2 Go chip based on the older Zen 3 architecture, while the Z1 Extreme, whose updates now appear to have stalled, is built on the newer Zen 4 architecture. The generational mismatch makes cross-installation risky and further limits options for affected users.

Driver updates play a crucial role in handheld gaming performance. They often bring game-specific optimizations, power management refinements, and bug fixes tailored to each device’s thermal and battery constraints. Without consistent updates, handheld PCs risk gradually falling behind newer games and evolving Windows builds. For handheld gamers, the uncertainty is the biggest concern. While nothing has been officially confirmed by AMD yet, with both Legion Go and ROG Ally owners noticing stalled updates, the conversation around long-term handheld support is clearly gaining momentum.