OTT platforms are the services and apps through which people watch video over the internet: films, series, live sport, anime, free TV channels, live hosts, one-minute dramas and other people playing games. OTT stands for over-the-top. The video reaches the viewer over an ordinary internet connection, not through a cable operator or a DTH dish.
Take, for example, one evening in a family home in Jaipur. The father watches a cricket match on the living-room TV. The daughter watches an anime series on her laptop. The son watches a friend's favourite gamer play live on his phone. The grandmother scrolls through short dramas in Hindi. Each of them is using a different kind of OTT platform.
The largest kind is the streaming service. It sells a catalogue of films and shows, and often live sport, through apps on phones and smart TVs. Some services charge a monthly subscription. Others are free and earn from ads. Many do both.
The smart TV operating system is the software that runs the TV itself. Its home screen shows a row of apps and, often, free channels that play a schedule like television. These are called FAST channels. The company that makes the operating system earns mainly from ads on that home screen.
Three other kinds are made for the phone. On a live streaming app with virtual gifts, hosts sing, chat and play games live, and viewers buy virtual gifts for them. A micro-drama app shows dramas filmed upright, in episodes a minute or two long, each unlocked one at a time. A game streaming platform lets people watch others play games live, and follow esports tournaments.
These platforms earn money in different ways. A streaming service mostly sells subscriptions and ads. The phone apps mostly sell virtual currency, coins bought with rupees and spent on gifts or episodes. What all of them share is a recommendation system, which decides what each viewer sees first. They also share the delivery technology described in video delivery technology.