Consumer platforms
164 companies assessed. 100 of them, 61.0%, sit in the two least protected bands, against 53.3% across all 10,525 companies assessed.
The picture
Consumer platforms are splitting into two very different stories. The giants that own a direct, habitual relationship with hundreds of millions of people, Meta, YouTube, Apple, Tencent, Valve, are barely dented. Nobody has found a way to make users leave WeChat, Instagram, or Steam, so their pressure scores stay low even as AI reshapes everything around them. The real damage is happening one layer down, at companies that depend on being discovered rather than being the destination. Zhihu, Quora, SmartNews, and Tripadvisor all show the same pattern: AI chat tools and AI search overviews now answer the question before the user ever opens the app, and traffic is falling in ways the companies can measure and cite. A second group is getting squeezed the old-fashioned way, by bigger, better-funded rivals with loyalty programs and bundles, think Bumble against Hinge, Twitch against YouTube Gaming and Kick, ShopBack against Rakuten and Shopee's native rewards. A third group didn't lose to a competitor at all, India's real-money gaming apps were simply outlawed. The one thing deciding survival across all of it is whether people come to a platform on their own habit or get routed there by someone else. Own the habit and you're fine. Depend on being found and AI is quietly taking that job away from you.
All 164 companies, most protected first
| Company | Standing |
|---|---|
| Agoda Asia-focused hotel and travel booking app owned by Booking Holdings | Hard to displace |
| Apple Apple makes the iPhone, Mac, and the App Store/Services layer that 2.5B active devices run on | Hard to displace |
| Danggeun Market (Karrot) Korean hyperlocal marketplace app for local buying, selling, and services | Hard to displace |
| Meta Platforms Owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and sells ads against 3.56 billion daily users worldwide. | Hard to displace |
| REA Group Runs realestate.com.au, Australia's biggest property listings and search platform | Hard to displace |
| Rover.com Marketplace connecting pet owners with vetted sitters and dog walkers, owned by Blackstone | Hard to displace |
| Spotify Technology World's largest music, podcast, and audiobook streaming platform, based in Sweden. | Hard to displace |
| Strava Social network and GPS tracking app for runners and cyclists, 195M+ users | Hard to displace |
| TaskRabbit On-demand marketplace for handyman, moving, and assembly help, owned by IKEA since 2017 | Hard to displace |
| Tencent Holdings Chinese internet giant behind WeChat, gaming, payments, and cloud, with 1.43B monthly WeChat users | Hard to displace |
| Valve Corporation (Steam) Steam is the dominant storefront and platform for PC games, owned by private Valve | Hard to displace |
| YouTube Alphabet's video platform, the largest creator-payout network and CTV video destination globally | Hard to displace |
| ZOZO, Inc. ZOZO runs ZOZOTOWN, Japan's largest online fashion marketplace on consignment. | Hard to displace |
| Ant Group (Alipay) Ant Group runs Alipay, China's largest mobile payments and super-app platform | Defensible for now |
| Bilibili Chinese video platform built around anime, gaming, and creator culture with a loyal community | Defensible for now |
| BlaBlaCar French carpooling and bus marketplace matching drivers with paying riders across 20+ countries | Defensible for now |
| ByteDance Chinese tech giant behind TikTok, Douyin, and the Doubao AI chatbot | Defensible for now |
| Crunchyroll Crunchyroll is Sony's anime streaming and merch service, licensing simulcasts and running an online store. | Defensible for now |
| CyberAgent, Inc. Japanese internet conglomerate running Ameba, ABEMA streaming, Cygames titles, and an ad agency | Defensible for now |
| Discord Chat and voice platform where communities run servers, bots, and Nitro subscriptions | Defensible for now |
| Fanatics Private platform selling licensed sports merch, trading cards, and now betting and prediction markets | Defensible for now |
| Flo Health App that tracks periods, ovulation, and fertility for roughly 80 million users | Defensible for now |
| Gett Israeli taxi-hailing and corporate ground-transport app, exited from most foreign markets | Defensible for now |
| Goodreads Book review and tracking social network with 150M+ members, owned by Amazon since 2013 | Defensible for now |
| Grindr Inc. Grindr runs the largest LGBTQ+ dating and social network app, profitable and growing fast. | Defensible for now |
| KE Holdings (Beike) KE Holdings runs Beike, China's largest online-to-offline home transaction and brokerage platform | Defensible for now |
| Letterboxd Social network and diary app for film fans, now adding movie rentals | Defensible for now |
| Life360 App that tracks family members' locations and sells safety subscriptions plus ads | Defensible for now |
| LY Corporation Japanese internet holding company running LINE messaging, PayPay payments, and Yahoo Japan search/commerce | Defensible for now |
| MakeMyTrip India's largest online travel platform for flights, hotels, buses, and trains | Defensible for now |
| Match Group Owns Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid, and Match.com, the biggest dating app portfolio in the West | Defensible for now |
| Musinsa South Korean fashion marketplace app selling streetwear, sneakers, and its own house brands | Defensible for now |
| Naver Corporation Naver runs South Korea's top search engine and its biggest online shopping and payments network | Defensible for now |
| OnlyFans UK-based subscription platform where creators sell content directly to paying fans | Defensible for now |
| Patreon Patreon runs paid membership and subscription tools creators use to bill fans directly | Defensible for now |
| Reddit Reddit runs the largest network of niche, pseudonymous discussion communities online. | Defensible for now |
| Turo Turo runs a peer to peer car sharing marketplace connecting car owners with renters | Defensible for now |
| VNG Corporation Vietnamese internet company running Zalo messaging, ZaloPay, and game publishing | Defensible for now |
| AllTrails App for discovering, tracking, and navigating hiking and outdoor trails | Protection under test |
| Angi Inc. Angi runs an online marketplace connecting homeowners with local service pros | Protection under test |
| BetterHelp BetterHelp is Teladoc's cash-pay online therapy app connecting users to licensed counselors | Protection under test |
| Cameo App where fans pay celebrities for personalized video shoutouts | Protection under test |
| Deezer French music streaming app, a distant number two to Spotify globally and at home | Protection under test |
| Douban Chinese review site where users rate and discuss films, books, and music | Protection under test |
| Fansly Fansly is a subscription platform where fans pay creators for exclusive adult content | Protection under test |
| Feeld Feeld is a profitable dating app for open relationships, kink, and polyamory | Protection under test |
| GetYourGuide Marketplace for booking tours, attractions, and activities worldwide | Protection under test |
| Hopper Travel app with AI fare prediction that also licenses its booking and fintech tech to banks and airlines | Protection under test |
| iHeartRadio Owns 850+ US radio stations and runs the iHeartRadio app plus a large podcast network. | Protection under test |
| JioSaavn Music streaming app bundled into Reliance Jio's telecom and mobile services in India | Protection under test |
| LINE MAN Wongnai Thai super-app combining LINE-based food delivery with Wongnai restaurant reviews and bookings | Protection under test |
| Marco Polo Marco Polo makes an app for asynchronous video messages between friends and family | Protection under test |
| PropertyGuru PropertyGuru runs property listing and agent marketplaces across Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam | Protection under test |
| Rakuten Group Japanese internet conglomerate spanning e-commerce, mobile carrier, banking, and cashback rewards | Protection under test |
| Rapido Indian bike-taxi and ride-hailing app now pushing into food delivery | Protection under test |
| Shopee (Sea Limited) Shopee is Sea Limited's e-commerce app, the top online shopping platform across Southeast Asia and Taiwan | Protection under test |
| Signal Foundation Nonprofit maker of the Signal encrypted messaging app, funded by donations | Protection under test |
| Sohu.com Chinese web portal and gaming holding company: Sohu.com media plus Changyou games | Protection under test |
| Substack Substack lets writers run paid email newsletters and podcasts, taking a cut of subscriptions | Protection under test |
| Ticketmaster Ticketmaster runs primary ticket sales for most major US venues, owned by Live Nation | Protection under test |
| Vivino Vivino is a wine rating app and marketplace with 280M+ ratings and 700+ merchant partners | Protection under test |
| VK Group Russian social network operator behind VKontakte and the state-mandated MAX app. | Protection under test |
| Vrbo Vrbo is Expedia Group's whole-home vacation rental booking brand, competing with Airbnb. | Protection under test |
| Wattpad Wattpad is a serialized fiction and social reading platform owned by WEBTOON Entertainment | Protection under test |
| ABEMA Japan's free ad-supported streaming app for live sports, news, and anime | Losing its protection |
| Anghami MENA music streaming app with 130M registered users, majority owned by OSN Streaming | Losing its protection |
| Audiomack Free, ad-supported music streaming and artist-upload app dominant across Africa | Losing its protection |
| Bandcamp Online marketplace where fans buy music and merch directly from artists | Losing its protection |
| Bark Technologies App and phone that let parents monitor kids' texts, apps, and location | Losing its protection |
| Bluesky Social Decentralized Twitter-alternative microblogging app built on the AT Protocol | Losing its protection |
| BookMyShow India's largest online ticketing app for movies, events, and live shows | Losing its protection |
| Bumble Inc. Bumble runs a women-first dating app now betting on AI to stop its user slide | Losing its protection |
| Cabify Spanish-founded ride-hailing app operating across Spain and Latin America since 2011 | Losing its protection |
| Care.com Care.com runs an online marketplace matching families with babysitters, nannies, and other caregivers | Losing its protection |
| Clue Clue makes a German-built, CE-marked cycle tracking app with a decade of health data | Losing its protection |
| Coffee Meets Bagel Small curated dating app competing against Hinge and Bumble for intentional daters | Losing its protection |
| Didi Global Didi runs China's biggest ride-hailing and mobility app, still trading OTC after its 2022 NYSE delisting | Losing its protection |
| DraftKings US sports betting and daily fantasy app now expanding into prediction markets | Losing its protection |
| FanDuel FanDuel is the top US sports betting and iGaming app, owned by Flutter Entertainment. | Losing its protection |
| FreeNow European taxi-hailing app, now a wholly owned Lyft subsidiary | Losing its protection |
| GREE, Inc. Japanese mobile game pioneer pivoting to VTuber avatars as core titles shrink | Losing its protection |
| Hello Group (Momo) Chinese social and live-streaming app operator behind Momo and Tantan, mature and shrinking at home | Losing its protection |
| HelloFresh SE German meal-kit and ready-to-eat food delivery company operating HelloFresh, Factor, and EveryPlate brands | Losing its protection |
| inDrive Bid-based ride-hailing app operating in 48 countries, big in Latin America and Africa | Losing its protection |
| iQIYI iQIYI is Baidu-backed Chinese video streaming platform with 100M+ subscribers, now losing money | Losing its protection |
| JOYY Inc. Runs Bigo Live, Likee, BIGO Ads, and SHOPLINE, live-gifting and e-commerce platforms | Losing its protection |
| Kick Live streaming platform rivaling Twitch, funded by crypto casino Stake.com | Losing its protection |
| KKBOX Taiwan-based music streaming service running in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore | Losing its protection |
| Klook Singapore-based app for booking tours and activities across Asia | Losing its protection |
| Komoot GmbH German app for planning hiking and cycling routes using community data and maps | Losing its protection |
| Locket Locket is a widget app that sends photos straight to friends' phone home screens | Losing its protection |
| Lyft US ride-hailing app connecting riders and drivers across North America and Europe | Losing its protection |
| Mastodon gGmbH German nonprofit running Mastodon, a decentralized, ad-free alternative to X and Threads | Losing its protection |
| Meetup Online platform where people find and organize recurring local interest groups | Losing its protection |
| Meitu Chinese maker of Meitu, BeautyCam, and RoboNeo photo/design apps with 276M users | Losing its protection |
| MeWe No-ads, no-algorithm social network for privacy-minded users, now pivoting to Web3 tokens | Losing its protection |
| MyFitnessPal App that logs food and calories for 280 million registered users worldwide | Losing its protection |
| Nazara Technologies Indian gaming holding company: casual games, esports events, licensed kids apps | Losing its protection |
| New Work SE (Xing) German DACH professional network and recruiting platform, now wholly owned by Burda | Losing its protection |
| Nextdoor Nextdoor runs the neighborhood social network where locals ask questions and get local news and alerts | Losing its protection |
| Ocado Group plc UK online grocer that also sells robotic warehouse tech to other retailers worldwide | Losing its protection |
| Opendoor Opendoor buys homes for cash via app, renovates, and resells them | Losing its protection |
| OYO Rooms Budget hotel booking app and franchise operator across India, US, and global markets | Losing its protection |
| Pandora Media Pandora runs personalized internet radio and podcast ads, owned by SiriusXM | Losing its protection |
| Peanut App connecting mothers for peer support, advice, and local meetups | Losing its protection |
| Peloton Interactive Peloton sells connected fitness bikes, treadmills, and app subscriptions to a shrinking but sticky subscriber base | Losing its protection |
| Pinterest Visual discovery platform where people browse boards of images to shop and plan | Losing its protection |
| Roblox Roblox runs the biggest kids-and-teens 3D game creation and social platform, monetized via Robux | Losing its protection |
| Rumble Free-speech video platform now pivoting into GPU cloud computing via Northern Data | Losing its protection |
| ShopBack ShopBack runs a cashback and rewards app for online shopping across Asia Pacific | Losing its protection |
| Skyscanner Flight and hotel search engine that compares prices across airlines and travel sites | Losing its protection |
| SmartNews Japanese news app that ranks #1 domestically for algorithmic news curation and summaries | Losing its protection |
| Snap Inc. Snap makes Snapchat, a camera-first messaging app with AR lenses and new AR glasses | Losing its protection |
| Soul App Chinese app matching Gen Z users by interests, using its own AI for chat and virtual companions | Losing its protection |
| SoundCloud Global platform where artists upload, stream, and get paid for music | Losing its protection |
| StubHub Online marketplace where people resell and buy tickets to concerts, sports, and shows | Losing its protection |
| Swvl Holdings Corp Egypt-founded mass-transit app running fixed shuttle routes for GCC firms and governments | Losing its protection |
| Telegram Encrypted messaging app with a huge public channel, bot, and crypto ecosystem | Losing its protection |
| Thumbtack App matching homeowners with local service pros like plumbers and cleaners | Losing its protection |
| Tidal Tidal is a hi-fi music streaming service majority owned by Block Inc. | Losing its protection |
| Too Good To Go App marketplace that sells surplus food from stores and restaurants at a discount | Losing its protection |
| Traveloka Indonesian travel super-app for flights, hotels, and PayLater bookings | Losing its protection |
| Trip.com Group Chinese online travel platform booking flights, hotels, and trips worldwide. | Losing its protection |
| Tripadvisor Inc. Tripadvisor runs travel reviews and books hotels, tours, and restaurant tables online | Losing its protection |
| Truecaller Truecaller runs a caller ID and spam-blocking app with over 500 million monthly users, mostly in India. | Losing its protection |
| Twitch Amazon-owned live streaming service for gaming and creator communities | Losing its protection |
| Untappd Social check-in app for beer, wine, and spirits, with a B2B venue tool, owned by Next Glass | Losing its protection |
| Urban Company Indian app marketplace booking home services like cleaning, repairs, beauty, and salon visits | Losing its protection |
| Viber Viber is a messaging app owned by Rakuten, dominant in Ukraine, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Belarus | Losing its protection |
| Vimeo Vimeo hosts, streams, and manages video for businesses and creators | Losing its protection |
| Vipshop Holdings Vipshop runs online flash sales of discounted, mostly branded apparel in China. | Losing its protection |
| VRChat VRChat runs a social VR platform where users create avatars and hang out in virtual worlds | Losing its protection |
| Wantedly Japanese app connecting job seekers and companies through casual, trust-based referrals | Losing its protection |
| Waze Waze is Google's crowdsourced, community-driven traffic and navigation app with 130-180M monthly users. | Losing its protection |
| Webtoon Entertainment Naver-spun-off digital comics platform hosting webtoons and licensing them into films, shows, and games | Losing its protection |
| Weibo Corporation Weibo runs China's main microblogging and trending-topic platform, tied closely to Alibaba's ad ecosystem | Losing its protection |
| Woowa Brothers (Baedal Minjok) Baemin, South Korea's top food delivery app, majority owned by Delivery Hero | Losing its protection |
| X Corp X, formerly Twitter, is a social platform now nested three layers inside SpaceX via xAI | Losing its protection |
| Yandex N.V. Former Yandex N.V., now Nebius: rents Nvidia GPU capacity to AI labs and hyperscalers | Losing its protection |
| Yanolja Korean travel app and hotel-tech group running booking, PMS, and channel management software | Losing its protection |
| Yassir Algeria-born ride-hailing and delivery super-app expanding across North and West Africa | Losing its protection |
| Yelp Inc. Local business reviews and ads platform connecting consumers to restaurants, contractors, and shops | Losing its protection |
| Yubo French live-video social app for meeting strangers, now 18+ only after a late-2025 pivot | Losing its protection |
| BeReal BeReal is a daily photo app now owned by mobile game maker Voodoo | Little protection left |
| Clubhouse Live audio chat app that boomed in 2020-2021, now pivoted to voice messaging | Little protection left |
| Dream11 Indian fantasy sports app whose paid-contest business was outlawed in 2025 | Little protection left |
| eHarmony eHarmony is a subscription matchmaking app owned by German media group ProSiebenSat.1 | Little protection left |
| Gab AI Inc. Alt-tech social network and AI chatbot wrapper serving a right-leaning, deplatformed audience | Little protection left |
| Happn French location-based dating app, now a Hello Group subsidiary | Little protection left |
| imo Networks imo Networks runs a free cross-platform chat and video call app claiming 200M plus users | Little protection left |
| Kik Interactive Kik is an aging anonymous chat app for teens, now a legacy asset inside MediaLab AI | Little protection left |
| Mobile Premier League (MPL) Mobile gaming and esports app, now mostly a casual game aggregator after India's real-money ban | Little protection left |
| NGL Labs Anonymous Q&A app for social media, now a bolt-on inside Mode Mobile's EarnOS | Little protection left |
| Parler LLC Free-speech social network that has flipped owners five times since 2018 | Little protection left |
| Quora Quora runs a Q&A site and Poe, a chatbot aggregator on top of OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google models | Little protection left |
| Rec Room Social/VR gaming platform for user-made rooms and games, now fully shut down | Little protection left |
| Robinhood (Thailand) Thai food delivery app, once SCB-subsidized, now owned by Yip In Tsoi Group at roughly 2% market share | Little protection left |
| Sun Basket US healthy meal kit subscription service delivering weekly recipes and prepared meals | Little protection left |
| Trump Media & Technology Group Owns Truth Social, a small Trump-branded social app now merging into a fusion energy startup | Little protection left |
| Tumblr Tumblr is Automattic's microblogging platform, losing money for years under its parent. | Little protection left |
| VerSe Innovation (Dailyhunt) Runs Dailyhunt news and Josh short-video apps for India's regional-language mobile users | Little protection left |
| Wag! Group Co. Dog walking and pet care marketplace app, now owned by its former lender after bankruptcy | Little protection left |
| Zhihu Chinese Q&A platform where users ask and answer knowledge questions | Little protection left |
| Zoosk Aging online dating app whose German parent company is in court-supervised insolvency | Little protection left |
Questions people ask
- Why is Zhihu losing users
- AI chatbots like DeepSeek, Kimi, and Zhipu AI now answer the same questions people used to ask on Zhihu, and Baidu and Douyin pull the rest of the traffic, leaving Zhihu with almost no defense left.
- Is Bumble dying
- Bumble's paying users fell 21% year over year while Match Group's Hinge grew 25% in the same period, suggesting daters are switching apps rather than the category shrinking overall.
- What happened to Dream11 and Mobile Premier League in India
- India banned real-money gaming in 2025, which wiped out their core paid-contest business overnight, not because a rival beat them but because the law changed. Both companies, along with Games24x7 and Gameskraft, are now pivoting to free-to-play and esports.
- Is Tripadvisor being replaced by Google AI search
- Google's AI Overviews now answer travel questions directly in search results, diverting the research traffic Tripadvisor relied on, while GetYourGuide and Klook separately compete for its Viator booking business.
- Is Vipshop still able to compete with Alibaba and Pinduoduo
- Vipshop's revenue fell to RMB105.9 billion from RMB108.4 billion and its own guidance points to another 0-5% drop next quarter, showing years of share loss to bigger platforms and livestream commerce is continuing, not stabilizing.
- Which consumer apps have already shut down or nearly disappeared because of AI or competition
- Rec Room shut down entirely in June 2026 with Roblox absorbing its users, Clubhouse pivoted away from live audio after users moved to X Spaces and Discord, and Kik's user base fell from 300 million to 15 million with no rebound.
What to watch
- Twitch's watch-time share versus YouTube Gaming and Kick in future streaming reports
- Bumble's paying subscriber count against Hinge's growth rate in upcoming Match Group and Bumble earnings
- Monthly visit trends for Quora, Zhihu, and SmartNews against the growth of AI chatbots like DeepSeek and Doubao
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