Instagram and TikTok are closer to streaming conflicts

Instagram tries to become like TikTok while TikTok extends its videos to be closer to YouTube.

Experts are discussing the streaming wars as a competition between these enormous global media companies such as NBCUniversal, Disney, AT&T’s WarnerMedia, Comcast’s, ViacomCBS, Discovery with compelling players Amazon and Netflix. There’s a valid reason for this battle. Their products are similar, typically consisting of T.V. series, films, live news, and sports.

However, as television becomes predominately presented across the internet, the rival lines between traditional media and online video services like YouTube, TikTok, Facebook’s Instagram, and Twitch are blurring. Today’s differentiation will consume over time as every company tries to dominate user attention. Those differences are scripted vs. user-generated content, subscription vs. free, long-form vs. short-form, professional sports vs. gaming.

For the first time, Netflix listed TikTok as its competitor. Netflix thinks that everything that interrupts Netflix usage is a competition. TikTok started as a user-generated music-dance video service. However, many creators earn money for videos that follow a script and have an episodic nature. These influencers are becoming celebrities for teenagers, and the fight between Netflix and TikTok has already begun.

Antitrust implications

Google, Facebook, and other large technology companies bring serious antitrust investigations as regulators, and Congress debate ethical implications to a sector with growing power across the global economy. Only five U.S. companies are worth over $1 trillion. All of them are large technology companies such as Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Facebook.

As legacy media companies started to shift their businesses to streaming, competitors with not enough content started to consolidate.

As Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube became closer competitors, it becomes easier for relatively more minor media groups such as NBCUniversal or ViacomCBS to claim they should merge or to request acquisition from larger competitors.