Every App Is Copying TikTok, Except For The Ones That Should Be.
Why are streamers so late to the short-form game?
Is it just me, or is every mobile app looking more and more like TikTok these days?
There are always five clickable buttons at the bottom of the page.
On the far left is always a “Home” icon.
Another button, typically in the middle, is for creating a new post.
And the rest generally have to do with notifications or connections.
But there’s always a third, far more time-consuming option.
A sound-on, infinite scroll of bite-sized entertainment that requires your full screen.
In fact, here are side-by-side screenshots of the TikTok For You Page, the Facebook Videos page, the Instagram Reels page, and the YouTube Shorts page on my iPhone.
Can you even tell which one is which?
Hell, even LinkedIn has adopted this interface:
But there are some prominent holdouts in the arms race for attention: the streamers.
Subscription-based platforms like Netflix, Hulu, and Max (née, HBO Max) have yet to adopt this newer, vertically-cropped format.
By contrast, here are the mobile views of Hulu, Netflix, and Max, respectively:
Sure enough, there’s that trusty Home icon in the bottom left corner, as per.
But the only other buttons concern notifications, search bars, and downloads.
This is particularly curious considering that Netflix has branched out into mobile gaming—an experiment in adding a new, interactive layer to its platform currently receiving top billing on the iOS app—yet hasn’t leaned into the short-form content revolution happening right in front of it.
As every other app fights to increase your Average Daily Screen Time with bite-sized, addictive content, why have streaming giants been slow to adapt, despite continually investing in the exact sort of material that thrives in this format?
Hulu just announced a massive play in the stand-up comedy space. Their first major special from Jim Gaffigan is set to release next month:
Additional comics will be announced at a future date with launch dates for those specials and other information to follow. Headed into the launch of Gaffigan's special in November, Hulu will additionally launch a curated collection of licensed stand-up specials ranging from iconic comedy specials to recent releases from 800 Pound Gorilla and Comedy Dynamics, among others.
If you already have these people’s monthly payment of $10.99 $12.99 $13.99 $14.99 $15.99 $16.99, isn’t the next step to maximize the average time spent on the platform?
Hulu is perfectly positioned for this type of innovation. Why not package all that incoming content in the way consumers actually engage with it on other platforms?
Hell, even the freaking NBA app recently introduced a “Moments” tab, where with one click, you can navigate to the game or news article from which that clip is from:
Imagine scrolling through 10-15 quick bits from these new comedy specials, instead of feeling like you need to commit to a whole hour of watching something.
I mean how many reports and studies are there out there about Gen-Z watching full TV shows and movies in installments on some random account’s TikTok page?
You guys have all the TV shows and movies!!
It wouldn’t just be a place to serve up promos or previews of new releases—it could feature curated, algorithmically-driven clips that allow users to quickly sample the catalog without the commitment of selecting a full show or movie.
You can tinker with the length, and intersperse them with clips from in-house hits.
Imagine a For YuLu Page1, but with jokes from the new Gaffigan special sandwiched between clips from Pen15, or English Teacher, or “The Best of Bender” from Futurama.
How many YouTube compilations with millions of views already exist in this format?
And then similar to how YouTube Shorts can one-click funnel to a longer video on the channel, you can embed the ability to dive into the full episode or comedy special.
The streamers could even take this one step further by offering a free or lower-priced subscription tier to the overall platform, where these clips from specials and shows are punctuated by advertisements every 5-6 videos, similar to how TikTok functions.
Amazon is soooooort of doing this, albeit in a dystopian, Gen-Z-meets-QVC way on their own interpretation of the For You Page, the “Inspire” tab:
If they instead included snippets of their own original Prime Video programming with the occasional one-click purchase advertisement every so often, it’d be hard not to envision Amazon handily beating TikTok at their own “TikTok Shop” game.
In a world where every app is chasing the TikTok dragon, streaming giants like Netflix and Hulu are sitting on a goldmine of proprietary content, yet leaving untapped potential on the table.
They have everything they need—iconic TV shows, dozens of comedy specials, and endless binge-worthy material—so why not break it down into bite-sized, scrollable content that better reflects their users’ media diet?
Scrolling through your For You Page is the modern day equivalent of channel-surfing.
Let us “surf” your app!!
Until then, we’re drowning in content overload.
And you can have that one.