All the big entertainment apps are starting to look the same, and that’s not an accident. For a decade, platforms fought over who would dominate a single format: music, video, podcasts, audiobooks. Now, powered by AI, they’re fighting over something bigger — becoming the app you default to whenever you have time to kill, no matter what form the content takes.
There are several reasons why this is the case. The market for entertainment apps is reaching maturity, so growth has slowed, pushing companies to compete on time spent and revenue-per-user instead of new sign-ups. In addition, today’s creators often work across formats, so it makes sense to provide a home for all their content, not just one piece of it.
AI adds a third reason. It makes it easier for a single company to build and run several formats well, and the wider the content mix, the more time users spend in the app, which in turn drives both ad revenue and subscriptions.
Netflix is one clear example of this trend, as the service over the past several years has added gaming, live sports and other events, and, more recently, short video clips and podcasts. The idea is to capture more of users’ time, even when there’s not a TV or movie they want to watch, as well as to find a way into the smaller bits of free time that people usually fill with scrolling social media, playing casual games, or watching TikTok or Reels.
Spotify has also been expanding its footprint beyond its original premise as a home for streaming music. After adding podcasts, the company added support for video podcasts, social features like Q&As and commenting, stories, and messaging, as well as different types of content like fitness classes, audiobooks, narrated magazines, and even physical book sales.
Meanwhile, YouTube, originally the home to longer-form creator content, moved into short-form content to compete with TikTok, while also adding dedicated space for podcasts, gaming content, music, movies and TV, sports and news, shopping, and more. Now, you can watch free movies and TV, supported by ads, stream live content, or rent or buy TV and movies to add to your library. At this rate, folding YouTube TV and YouTube Music into YouTube proper — and selling tiered access to the whole bundle — looks like a matter of when, not if.
