Vessel subscription service looks to reshape economics of online video

A growing contingent of videomakers plans to post videos to a new subscription service, the well-funded and much-anticipated start-up Vessel, at least 72 hours before the same videos go live on YouTube or elsewhere on the Web.

Whether the key demographic of 14-to-24-year-olds sees $2.99 a month as being worth that early access to fresh content could determine what video built for the Web looks like for years to come. The plan is to make Vessel’s website and mobile app available to consumers early in 2015, giving content owners a chance to polish their pages in the meantime. Vessel is banking on a mix of premium advertising and subscription revenues to pay video creators at least 20 times more than they typically make from advertising revenue alone on YouTube. Vessel calls itself a “missing piece of the puzzle for content creators,” and one that’s not going to displace nonsubscription video services.