November 2025

10 Streaming Wars 2025 Who’s Really Winning the Attention Economy In 2025 the battleground for streaming is no longer simply about subscribers— it’s about attention. A decade ago the strategy focused on locking in view- ers with exclusives, pushing subscriber growthanddaily-watchnumbers.Today the landscape has evolved: platforms, creators and advertisers are fighting for every micro-second of audience time, across screens, apps and devices. As an industry observer, I’ve watched the shift from “who has the most content” to “who holds the most mind-share.” Take the example of YouTube. Traditionally seen as user-gen- erated-content territory, it has quietly redefined its role into a mainstream streaming power. Analysts estimate that You- Tube now accounts for close to 10% of television viewing time in the U.S. and has begun to blur the lines between cre- ator clips, sports, music videos and linear-TV replacements. Meanwhile, the legacy giants—Netflix, Disney+, Ama - zon Prime Video—have acknowledged the new met- ric: engagement depth over household reach. According to a recent brief by Kantar, the shift is less about “who streams more” and more about “who resonates more”. Platforms must appear in the “rel- evance zone” of viewers’ lives, not just fill a screen. That means personnel decisions, content budgets and technology investments are increasingly ori- ented toward retention, emotional connection, and platform “stickiness” rather than pure scale. Photo by | Jakub Zerdzicki Photo by | Sound On Photo by | Kübra Kuzu