Nebula

Yeah my first reaction to this was definitely an ick. But reading more details about it based on the Reddit thread has assuaged my concerns. It's not actually a very interesting story from the perspective of a Nebula user—only from the perspective of someone who doesn't use Nebula but might like Nebula content, and wants an alternative to YouTube.

Like before you spin off a news channel and a movie studio, maybe hire a full time developer

They have developers. And the app got leaps and bounds better over the last 18 months. Though I agree it's still not ideal.

I've also heard they're very selective about only letting popular creators on

Sort of, yeah, and unapologetically so. They curate highly so that viewers can know anything on there is good. Their onboarding method seems to involve adding people that they know are trustworthy, usually because someone already on the platform can vouch for them. It's why they grow the size of their offering at a fairly modest pace, and often add multiple similar styles of content at once (e.g. when they added three or four urbanists in a few months).

try to lock up exclusive rights with big names

For the most part, they don't do exclusive lock-ups. They allow their creators to upload whatever they want to whatever other platforms they want. The only exception is Nebula Originals, which they directly fund and which usually don't show up elsewhere (though some do, such as the latest season of Jet Lag). Originals are typically big budget things that wouldn't have happened, or perhaps would have required a Kickstarter, without the Nebula funding.