Netflix and Tinder Made More Money than Any Other Apps in the 2010s

You already knew the 2010s were the decade of "Netflix and chill." Now industry revenue numbers back it up.

Americans fell in love with applications in general during the decade after the iOS App Store and Google Play launched. As an avalanche of mobile applications came through, there was one catering to any need, big or small. And today these apps feed us, house us, control our homes... they even help us date.

But it turns out that the apps consumers wound up putting the most money towards internationally were the ones that were created to entertain.

In the ten-year span beginning 2010, consumers spent more money on Netflix than on any other app, according to app analytics firm App Annie. The firm used iOS and Google Play data to determine these rankings — and their findings check out. Netflix relies almost entirely on subscribers to make money, meaning it had to sell a lot of subscriptions to become the highest-performing stock of the decade.

The streaming platform was joined by seven other music and video apps from around the world. Pandora Music, Tencent Video, tv and movie service iQIYI, Spotify, YouTube, HBO Now, and a video sharing platform called Kwai all made the top ten. So did Japan-based messaging app Line.

But like Netflix, the runner-up was also a U.S.-based trailblazing app. Tinder, the location-based dating service, made more money than any app in the world other than Netflix — an especially impressive feat for an app that didn’t start charging its users until 2015.

Of course the ‘international’ aspect of this list worked against popular, more geographically limited service apps like Uber or Airbnb. But it does go to show that in the decade of technology and apps, we opted to put our money towards quality content and socializing.