Marques Brownlee’s first app isn’t getting a warm welcome

MrBeast, Logan Paul, and KSI‘s Lunchly isn’t the only creator product getting a rough reception lately. After years of reviewing all sorts of tech, Marques Brownlee has launched his first app, where users pay $12 a month to access a curated selection of iOS and Android wallpapers that may or may not be AI-generated.

And people are not thrilled.

The app, called Panels, is build on the personal brand Brownlee has developed over 16 years on YouTube, where his channel MKBHD has nearly 20 million subscribers and brings in around 60 million views a month. The very first tech review he posted back in 2009 was crunchy and lo-fi, with minimal editing, but his videos these days are slick, stylish, high-production affairs where devices like phones, computers, and smartwatches, are all outfitted with eye-catching wallpapers. As Brownlee points out, when you search Google for “where does mkbhd…” the top suggestion is usually “…get his wallpapers?”

Panels was made to address that question–and give his viewers a chance to snag those same wallpapers, along with other handpicked images, for themselves. Brownlee dropped the app during his latest iPhone review, which is typically one of his biggest videos each year.

“You guys have always been asking me where I get my wallpapers,” he said in the video. “Now we’ve put them all in one place. […] Almost all of the wallpapers on the devices and in backgrounds you’ve seen in my videos for the past year have all come from Panels, which is pretty sick.”

Brownlee said Panels splits profits with artists 50/50, and introduces new wallpapers each week—with “much more” incoming, he promised. He also said he “has some pretty big plans for this thing.” It was clear he expected the app to be a hit with viewers who’d spent so long asking why his devices looked so cool.

But it wasn’t a hit. Comments on the video are overwhelmingly negative, with people criticizing Panels’ overall design, pricing structure (Brownlee himself once said “never try to charge for something that was already free“), ad frequency (people who would rather use the app for free than pay $12/month can download lower-resolution images, but have to watch one 30-second ad per image they save), the fact that images can be AI-created (Brownlee said Panels artists can choose whether or not to use AI, and that it’s up to users to decide “how much you value the human touch

” in wallpapers they download), along with how much personal data it appeared to collect from users.

While we do think Forbes is right in saying some of the criticism seemed powered by schadenfreude, with commenters saying Brownlee spent “years roasting founders” and needs to be “humbled,” and that he “did the same to Humane AI” so deserves a downfall, complaints about things like ad frequency and AI “art” usage are justified.

Like the Lunchly trio, Brownlee was quick to respond to backlash on his new product. He tweeted a fairly long statement Sept. 24 saying getting instant “mass feedback” on it was “pretty dope.”

“First thing we’re doing is fixing the excessive data disclosures, as people rightfully brought up. For transparency, we’d never actually ask for your location, internet history, etc. The data disclosures (that everyone is screenshotting) is likely too broad, and largely driven by what the ad networks suggest. Working to fix that ASAP,” he said.

As for pricing, “I hear you!” Brownlee said, adding that it’s “our own personal challenge to work to deliver that kind of value for the premium version.” He also said Panels would scale back the number of ads free users are required to watch.

So, what can other creators take away from the Panels situation? We think it’s this: YouTube has made it possible for product reviewing to be a full-time career. But creators are, by nature, creative, innovative, and often entrepreneurial. Reviewers can become known as experts, and as trusted, authoritative voices viewers increasingly seek out for advice on what to buy.

If they one day decide to use that expertise to launch products in the same industry they’ve been reviewing for over a decade, they need to make sure those products are very, very good.