Viewers who treat a streaming service as their default — the first app they open when they want to watch something — are far more loyal and far less likely to cancel, according to Hub Entertainment Research’s 2026 “Decoding the Default” study.
The finding matters because not all subscribers are equally valuable. Higher engagement predicts who stays and who churns, and frequent cancel-and-resubscribe behavior drives up marketing and retention costs.Hub found that default status is the clearest signal of that engagement.
Across paid streaming, free ad-supported platforms and live TV, default services are the last ones cut, often remain in households for years, and are the ones viewers are most likely to personalize.
Among all Netflix users, 28% said they would keep it if they could keep only one service. Among users who call Netflix their default, that jumped to 62%. The gap was wider for Disney+: 10% of all users would keep it alone, versus 61% of those who consider it their default — more than six times as loyal.
“This data illustrates why streaming’s metric of success is shifting from subscriber numbers to engagement,” said Jon Giegengack, principal at Hub Entertainment Research and a study author. He said the results also point to the value of combinations such as Fox and Roku, Peacock and YouTube Premium, or Netflix and TF1 in Europe: bundled services with more than one starting point.
“If you give viewers a compelling reason to start with your service, they will use your service more and stick around longer.”