Chat App Line's Latest Experiment Is A YouTube-Like Video Service
Messaging app company Line continues to build out its business beyond its core chat service after it launched a YouTube-like video service in Thailand. The company, which claims 181 million active users worldwide …
Context & Ripple Effects
The video service is not an isolated experiment but one move in a rapid-fire sequence: days earlier Line was moving toward selling and delivering groceries in Southeast Asia, and a week later it shipped Line@ for iOS and Android, an enterprise version of its chat app. The through-line is converting 181 million chat users into revenue across adjacent categories.
Thailand keeps showing up as the proving ground — the same market where Line would later test a $2/month standalone music streaming app. The company's diversification eventually went far past media: it invested $45M for 25% of the Snapchat-like app Snow, and by 2018 was pushing into cryptocurrency trading and insurance.
First-order effects
- Thai users get a YouTube-style video destination built on Line's existing 181-million-user base, putting the service into direct competition with YouTube in that market.
- Content creators in Thailand gain a new distribution channel backed by Line's chat-driven discovery, at a time when Line is actively recruiting supply for each vertical it opens.
Second-order effects
- Each vertical Line opens pressures it to keep building standalone paid products — the video launch sits between the grocery push and the music-streaming test, signaling a portfolio approach where media subscriptions subsidize a free chat core.
- Rival messaging platforms face the same playbook pressure to bolt commerce and media onto chat before Line locks up Southeast Asian markets like Thailand.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, messaging apps evolve into super-apps: Line's later moves into finance via the Snow investment and cryptocurrency-and-insurance expansion show the endpoint is a platform where chat is just the entry point.
- Regional champions competing this way fragment the global internet into app ecosystems that bundle video, shopping, and payments — making single-category incumbents like YouTube vulnerable market by market rather than globally.
The trend: Messaging platforms are expanding from single-purpose chat apps into super-apps that layer video, commerce, and financial services on top of their user bases, with Southeast Asia as the testing ground.