Streaming giants stop competing for evenings. They are competing for the tram ride

Streaming apps have adopted a vertical feed as their new default. Netflix launched Clips in nine countries on 30 April, Disney+ named its version Verts in mid-March, and Google TV will bring YouTube Shorts straight to the home screen of the television from the summer. TikTok’s mechanics now carry a Madison Avenue signature.

Brandon Smithwrick, former content lead at Kickstarter, called it the peak TikTok-ification of streaming in a post on Monday. The label fits, but it hides the substance. Streaming platforms are opening a new competition for five minutes on the tram.

The same mechanics across Netflix, Disney+ and Google TV

Netflix described Clips as “personalized highlight reel that helps you decide what to watch or play next without endless scrolling”. It is a vertical feed of highlights from which viewers jump straight into an episode. The launch took place on 30 April 2026 in the US, Canada, Britain, Australia, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines and South Africa. “Rest of the world in the months to come,” added Netflix Newsroom.

The app redesign goes deeper than it looks. The new navigation has four tabs (Home, Clips, Search, My Netflix). Clips sits between Home and Search as an equal destination. Netflix also announced in January that it wants to be a platform for “daily engagement” rather than the weekend binge.

Disney+ named its version Verts and announced it at CES 2026 in January, with the launch following in mid-March. The feed content is a mix of original short-form material, recycled social clips and scenes from shows and films. Deadline quotes Disney’s stated goal, “must-visit daily destination”. Disney says without pretence what the creator economy has been saying for years.

Google TV will not send Shorts to a second tab. It will place them in a new row called “Short videos for you” directly on the home screen, starting this summer in the US, and Google is already openly talking about extending beyond Shorts. The phrase “starting with YouTube Shorts” says out loud that other vertical sources will follow.

Netflix, Disney+ and Google TV have built the same mechanism under different brands. The vertical feed opens without sorted navigation. You click on it, you don’t search for it.

From watch time to daily app opens

Streaming platforms were built on viewing. The algorithm optimised for “time spent”, advertisers paid for “completed views”, and shows were rated by completed episodes. The vertical feed reverses this mechanism. What is measured is app opens, swipes, and clicks from a clip into an episode. The clips in Clips work as a discovery layer that pulls users back to the long format, or at least back into the app.

Netflix effectively admitted this when it said back in January that it wants daily engagement. Daily engagement belongs to the vocabulary of social networks. A cinema has to ask whether it will hold your Saturday evening. A social network asks whether you will pick up your phone for the fourth time in an hour. Disney stamped it the same way: “must-visit daily destination.” Google does not need to say it at all. It does so with its home screen.

Platforms were losing the habit of opening an app every day, and the vertical feed is its infusion. Short-form alone will not earn much, but it restores a daily point of contact that keeps subscriptions active between big premieres. That is the shift that a headline such as Netflix is starting to do TikTok fails to name.

The battle moves from time to discovery

The contest is decided by where viewers choose what to watch next. In the week before Netflix’s launch, Spotify firmly declared that it leads in total listening time, while YouTube leads in discovery. Smithwrick applies the same logic to video. For years streaming competed for time and left discovery to others. The vertical feed opens a new contest for discovery inside its own app, on its own rules.

The timing confirms the trend. Disney spoke in January, at a technology conference. Google in April, at a developer forum. Netflix shortly after them, with a global rollout. Corporate decisions are maturing in parallel. They are responding to the same pressure.

The pressure has a name. A competitor in the phone that can do discovery more cheaply.

Phone before TV, clips before trailers

Verts and Clips promise “helps you decide what to watch next without endless scrolling”. A cure for endless scrolling, delivered by the very mechanism that invented endless scrolling. In Disney’s announcement this loop goes unspoken, but it forms the core of the product.

Viewers open the app on their phone first, and the television is left aside. Disney+ Verts launched on mobile, Netflix Clips did too, while Google TV is tackling the TV screen precisely because the platform was coming to vertical video on that screen. The order is reversed. Film used to be optimised for television. Today the vertical format is pulling television towards it.

The studios that supply long-form content to Netflix and Disney will get a new brief. Clips are becoming a primary output of delivery, alongside the show itself. Without them, a show will not appear among the top recommendations in Clips or Verts.

Open questions for autumn 2026

Whether this is a UI experiment or a strategic turn will be revealed in the coming months.

Localisation of the format will reveal the most. Disney+ Verts launched only in the US, and a European rollout has not yet been confirmed. Netflix is already doing a global rollout, while Disney traditionally moves at a slower pace. The speed of the European launch will show how seriously Disney takes the trend.

It also remains open whether Netflix will deliver on its announcement in the Newsroom and extend Clips to podcasts and live broadcasts. At that point the vertical feed would become the only universal entry point across film, podcasts and live broadcasting. Today neither YouTube nor TikTok can do that.

Smaller players will give their answer through silence or action. HBO Max, Paramount+ and Peacock have so far stayed quiet. If they do not come up with their own version by autumn, their apps will look dated. A user trained to scroll on Netflix and Disney+ will expect it everywhere.

Smithwrick ended his post on the peak TikTok-ification with a truncated sentence, “vertical i…”, which the LinkedIn feed trimmed. From summer 2026, what to watch next is decided directly in the vertical feed.