YouTube Is Swallowing TV Whole, and It's Coming for the Sitcom
For two decades, YouTube has tried to convince advertisers that it's the future of entertainment. The pitch has always been simple enough: 'Young people don't watch cable; they watch YouTube.' It doesn't exactly require a PowerPoint presentation.
But YouTube has had problems making its case. The first is that the vast majority of videos on the site aren't filmed to Scorsese-like standards. 'The biggest knock against creator content is that it's low quality, s---, crap, slop, garbage,' Doug Shapiro, a former executive at Time Warner, wrote in December. That's sort of inconsequential, he argued, since most people aren't watching random YouTube slop—they're watching the most popular slop. Which leads to YouTube's second issue: The most watched channels haven't always been hospitable to advertisers.
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3 Dividend Stocks to Hold for the Next 20 Years
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It's highly unlikely that General Mills will suddenly go out of business anytime soon. That said, right now the company is facing some headwinds. Consumer buying habits are shifting, and some buyers are pulling back on spending. That has left General Mills' financial results weak. Sales and earnings fell year over year in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025. The company's fiscal 2026 outlook was a bit weak, too. But management is doing what it can to adjust, including changing formulations to match current trends, adjusting its brand and product portfolio, and trying to keep a lid on costs. These are the right moves and, in time, they will likely lead to General Mills getting back on track. It always has in the past. While General Mills' stock is out of favor, you can buy it at an attractive 4.8% yield. That's near the highest levels in the company's history. If you like income and think long term, General Mills should probably be on your buy list today. 2. PepsiCo has industry-leading brands General Mills is a good company with industry-leading brands, but PepsiCo's brands stand out even more. It's the No. 2 beverage company and the No. 1 salty snack maker. It also makes packaged food products that compete with companies like General Mills. The problem for PepsiCo is that customer tastes are shifting, and it is out of step with its customers. The company is working on the issue -- it recently bought a Mexican-American food business and a probiotic beverage company. Both are more in line with current trends. Sure, PepsiCo's recent financial results aren't that great, and they lag those of its closest peers. It's OK -- that happens even to well-run businesses. PepsiCo didn't achieve Dividend King status by accident, and it has muddled through hard times before. It's highly likely that it will do so again. In the meantime, you can collect a historically high 3.9% dividend yield. If the dividend history here is any guide, you'll end up a long-term winner if you're willing to step in while the rest of Wall Street is selling. 3. Hershey's cocoa problem makes it hard to love Hershey is the most difficult story to appreciate here for two reasons. First, while it makes food, the most important product it sells is chocolate. That's not a necessity, even though people love the affordable indulgence. Second, the biggest headwind for the business is a shocking rise in the price of cocoa, a key ingredient in chocolate. Cocoa comes from trees, so it could take some time before high prices lead to changes in the industry. That's why investors have sold Hershey stock hard, leading to a historically high 2.9% dividend yield. Just how bad is it? Despite increasing prices and the expectation of sales growth in 2025, Hershey is projecting rising costs to lead to a roughly mid-30% drop in earnings in 2025. And given the nature of cocoa, the pain could linger for a bit. 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Do the experts think PepsiCo is a buy right now? The Motley Fool's expert analyst team, drawing on years of investing experience and deep analysis of thousands of stocks, leverages our proprietary Moneyball AI investing database to uncover top opportunities. They've just revealed their to buy now — did PepsiCo make the list? When our Stock Advisor analyst team has a stock recommendation, it can pay to listen. After all, Stock Advisor's total average return is up 1,036% vs. just 181% for the S&P — that is beating the market by 855.09%!* Imagine if you were a Stock Advisor member when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $625,254!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,090,257!* The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. 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'Fawning' is Gen Z's new fight-or-flight response
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Reactive or abusive parents have existed forever. Still, it's the online world Gen Zers grew up in that primes them to feel abandoned more often, triggering a need for reassurance that their relationships are stable. "There are so many ways to connect now, and because of that, there are so many ways to feel forgotten," Josephson said. While past generations were limited to in-person interactions, letters, or phone calls, Gen Zers can feel validated — or rejected by — so much more. Their best friend not "liking" their Instagram photo. A crush leaving their DM on read. A group of their friends posting a Snapchat without them. This can lead them to fawning, which Josephson considers "almost a more modernized threat response" compared to fight or flight. An unanswered text may not be frightening enough to trigger physically running away, but it can pressure someone to send more clarifying texts in the frantic hope that their friend isn't upset with them. The fawn response, at its core, is "I need this external validation to know that I'm safe," she said. To complicate matters even more, online life is both rife with posts about how people should behave and opportunities to be misunderstood. "We don't hold a lot of room for nuance because we want digestible, short, snappy information," Josephson said. She said one of the first steps to healing is realizing that we're all inundated with high expectations, heightening "this ridiculous standard that we hold ourselves to internally." An endless supply of reassurance Perpetual people-pleasers might fall into a common trap: rampant reassurance-seeking. It can look like texting "Are you mad at me?" to a friend or asking your partner if they're still into the relationship. Validation-seeking can become a cycle because "we're getting this relief for a split second," Josephson said. But done in excess, it can strain relationships, she said. 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Josephson said that she works with clients to move away from labels that can keep them stuck. "It's not an identity, but rather it's a self-protective pattern," she said. "It's this younger part of you that has learned to be on high alert to manage people's moods as a way to protect you, but that doesn't mean you always need protecting now." One of the best starting points is pausing — putting the phone down or taking a beat in the middle of a heated conversation. A moment of mindfulness, "even if it's just for 10 seconds," can help you acknowledge the fear without immediately reacting to it, Josephson said. "If you're oversharing because you want to feel understood, pause. What do you actually want to say, versus what's coming from a place of fawning?" Done consistently, this practice becomes the stepping stone for other habits, like tolerating discomfort in a conflict or setting boundaries. 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3 Reasons Stablecoins Are Still a Risky Investment Choice
Key Points Stablecoins are gaining a lot of attention as an alternative to U.S. dollars. But a lot of those coins aren't actually backed by U.S. dollars. They're also not designed to beat inflation or the market over the long term. 10 stocks we like better than Tether › Stablecoins are gaining a lot of attention as an alternative to traditional cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. These coins, which are usually pegged to real-world assets like fiat currencies or gold, are designed to generate stable long-term returns. The most popular stablecoins are Tether (CRYPTO: USDT), USD Coin (CRYPTO: USDC), DAI (CRYPTO: DAI), TrueUSD (CRYPTO: TUSD), and PayPal USD (CRYPTO: PYUSD), all of which are pegged to the U.S. dollar. The issuers of these stablecoins back up their coins with their own reserves of cash, cash equivalents, and other assets. These USD-backed stablecoins try to keep their price at $1. They can be held without a bank account, help people protect their savings in countries with currency devaluation issues, and facilitate faster and cheaper cross-border transfers than U.S. dollars. USD stablecoins are also widely used in decentralized finance (DeFi) apps to pay out rewards, establish collateral for loans, and trade assets without a conversion to a fiat currency. They can act as a bridge currency to help crypto traders quickly switch between volatile assets. These stablecoins might initially seem a lot safer than other cryptocurrencies, but they're not risk-free investments. Let's review the three risks for stablecoins you should be aware of. 1. Not all stablecoins are backed by real-world assets Most USD-collateralized stablecoins like Tether and gold-backed stablecoins like Tether Gold (CRYPTO: XAUT) are pegged to physical assets. Tether holds a mix of cash, U.S. Treasuries, precious metals, and other cash equivalents. Tether Gold directly holds gold reserves. But there are two other types of stablecoins that are pegged to much riskier assets: crypto-collateralized coins, which are pegged to other cryptocurrencies; and algorithmic coins, which rely on automated computer programs to control the supply and keep their prices stable. For example, DAI is a crypto-collateralized coin that holds a mix of Ether, Tether, Wrapped Bitcoin, and Lido Staked Ether instead of actual U.S. dollars or Treasuries. By only holding cryptocurrencies, it doesn't rely on any custodian banks to hold fiat currencies. But it's not fully decentralized, since it's still holding a lot of Tether (which is backed by actual U.S. dollars), and a crypto crash could reduce the value of its collateral and weaken its peg to the U.S dollar. Many algorithmic stablecoins, like TerraUSD, crashed when their automated programs couldn't stay pegged to the U.S. dollar. Yet some smaller stablecoins are still trying to stay pegged with their own algorithms. If those opaque algorithms fail, those smaller stablecoins could quickly fizzle out if they're not backed by other assets. Therefore, investors shouldn't assume all stablecoins are "stable" because they've been holding steady at $1. Instead, they should see what these issuers are actually holding as their collateral, and whether they can be trusted to stay firmly pegged to the U.S. dollar. 2. They're exposed to regulatory headwinds Many stablecoins have sprouted up during the past few years, but they could be cut down by much tighter government regulations in the near future. Those regulators could scrutinize their underlying reserves and usage in cross-border remittances. They might even ban the riskier algorithmic stablecoins. Those government regulators could also consider stablecoins to be a threat to central banks, and use tighter licensing, auditing, or reporting requirements to subdue their growth. That oversight would undermine the usefulness of stablecoins as an alternative to U.S. dollars. 3. They aren't designed to beat inflation Most traditional investments, like stocks, are aimed at beating inflation. For example, the S&P 500 has generated an average annual return of 10% since its inception in 1957. In that context, stablecoins aren't good long-term investments because they're designed to merely match the value of the U.S. dollar -- which will inevitably decline over the long term. So for capital preservation, you would be better off parking your cash in a risk-free CD or T-bill that pays a 4% to 5% yield instead. The only way for stablecoins to beat inflation is if they're lent out on other crypto platforms to earn interest. Those platforms still pay double-digit annual percentage yields, but you're taking on a lot of counterparty risk for that yield. Several of those platforms -- including Celsius, Voyager, and BlockFi -- collapsed in 2022 and wiped out their lenders' stablecoins. Should you buy stablecoins right now? Stablecoins might be a viable way to preserve your capital, execute fast and cheap cross-border transfers, and smoothly invest in crypto platforms or apps. But they're not inflation-beating investments and they face a lot of risks that won't affect the U.S. dollar. Investors should clearly evaluate those risks before jumping on the bandwagon. Should you buy stock in Tether right now? Before you buy stock in Tether, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Tether wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $625,254!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,090,257!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,036% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 181% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 29, 2025 Leo Sun has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin and Ethereum. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. 3 Reasons Stablecoins Are Still a Risky Investment Choice was originally published by The Motley Fool
