[volgo]

The interesting thing is that these platforms come and go. One year it’s Vine, another year it’s Snap, now it’s TikTok. ByteDance bought musically for $1B in 2017 and turned it into Tok.

3 years later, it’s grown like crazy because it’s the latest fad and would be smart for them to cash out before the next new thing hits

The whole divestment thing is probably a godsend for ByteDance, “forcing” them to liquidate their stake, but in reality let’s them cash out on an overhyped app that’s easy to copy

Must be laughing all the way to the bank

[kerng]

I think you underestimate the popularity and potential of TikTok and ByteDance at large.

It's like Facebook, maybe around 2010-2012, with enormous upward potential - they might even dethrone Facebook and their offerings in the coming years. For the core Facebook app, I wouldnt be surprised if they did that already in a couple of countries.

[philsnow]

The promise of "upward potential" of every one of these social media fads is that it could be the "last" one, the Big One that websites and captures every following generation.

Do you think that TikTok is The Big One, that will still be growing at the same rate in ten years' time? I don't.

Myspace and Facebook are shrinking. Some of the users leaving are going to TikTok, sure, but I don't think that means that it's better, it's just hotter right now.

[spideymans]

Of course TikTok won’t be growing at the same rate in 10 years time. That doesn’t mean it won’t still be a huge platform, however.

In fact, I’d wager that, it TikTok plays their cards right, the platform could be bigger than YouTube within five years or so. I know it sounds crazy now, but there is nothing that dictates that YouTube’s model is the best for delivering democratized video publishing to the masses.

I find that a lot of these Gen Z kids don’t have the patience to sit thru a five or 10 minute YouTube video (and I can’t really blame them; how much time have you wasted watching YouTube videos that ended up being clickbait garbage?). They’d rather have the information condensed down into a 90 second video, and TikTok is perfectly designed to serve those viewing habits.

I know the popular perception of TikTok (from those that don’t use it) is that it just hosts trendy dance videos, but TikTok creators are publishing essentially all the same genres of content we see on YouTube. You can find everything from dance videos to home improvement tutorials on the service. Furthermore, more and more YouTube creators are moving over to TikTok. I view the service as the single biggest threat we’ve seen to YouTube since it’s rise to popularity.

I suspect TikToks next big move will be into YouTube’s bread and butter: official music videos. Their user interaction model lends itself extremely well into music discovery.

Also, most fundamentally, there’s only 24 hours in a day. Every hour spent on TikTok is one hour not spent on YouTube or a competing service.

[wolco]

TikTok is not a threat to youtube. Instagram maybe. Everyone has a place.

Short videos on youtube are not rewarding and accounts are centered usually around one topic.

On tiktok you follow a person who posts videos.. which are like moving instagram pictures .

Instagram has been pushing videos but people are sharing more live stream longer content.

The next big site will be pornhub meets tiktok. 90 seconds or less x-rated content that is connected to patreon and your tiktok profile

[spideymans]

TikTok has essentially three categories of users

1. Users that watch, but don’t post anything

2. Regular people that just post random things for fun. These people are essentially using it as instagram for video

3. People making relatively high quality content involving specific subject matter (vlogs, food, technology, sports, etc...). Essentially recreating YouTube channels on TikTok.

The service has historically been dominated by category 1 and 2, but we’re seeing more and more of category 3 now.

And keep in mind that I’m not saying YouTube will disappear - not in the least. There is space for both services to exist. However, TikTok will be capturing an increasing share of the creators that previously had no choice but to be on YouTube.

[wolco]

Usually they are forced to youtube for the advertising dollars. On twitter or instagram influencers can make a sizable amounts with sponsored posts. Does tiktok have an ad program for content creators? Are tiktok users becoming paid influencers? Do people post sponsored tiktok videos?

[spideymans]

> The next big site will be pornhub meets tiktok. 90 seconds or less x-rated content that is connected to patreon and your tiktok profile

Ha, not sure if this was supposed to be a joke or not, but that’s arguably what lead Tumblr’s rise to prominence, and also their demise when the porn ban was implemented

[zanny]

Importantly its because kids don't want to be a part of the "old" culture. They actively reject entering places with an older established demographic because they want to define their own spaces.

Tiktok by its nature cannot maintain the momentum it has with kids 14-18 now with the kids that are currently 8-12. They will reject it no matter what Tiktok does because thats how kids are conditioned in the west to behave.

[learc83]

I think it’s less that they won’t to define their own space than that they don’t want to hangout with their parents.

But your point holds either way. Eventually TikTok will become so popular that their parents/grandparents/older siblings will start using it, and it won’t be cool anymore.

[mgraczyk]

Facebook is shrinking in some countries, but globally it is still growing in both usage and activity. Check out their recent quarterly results.

[csmiller]

They grew DAUs in every region.

DHH said it well on twitter, the constraint to FB's growth is they are running out of people on earth.

[https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1288939549884743680]

[philsnow]

Thanks for pointing this out, my US-centrism blinded me to it.

[jamesjyu]

FB DAU is still growing in the US, albeit slower than before.

[wolco]

With the stay home orders I would expect numbers to be up.

[albacur]

The pet rock was a fad.

Online companies, like brick and mortar companies, rise and fall. And even if Facebook's best days are behind it, I'm not sure we can call a business that grew for nearly 15 years and is now used by billions of people a "fad." Regardless, it generated unfathomable wealth for its founders, and made thousands of employees financially set for life.

If TikTok could capture that, it doesn't matter if it lasts five years or ten years, the people at the top will become very, very rich.

So I think both commenters above are correct: it has huge potential upside that investors are willing to gamble on, and it probably won't become the next Facebook so it might be worth it for the current owners to cash out now.

[kerng]

They can still grow by about 10x (at least I'd say). Wait until they focus or reach other demographics.

[patrickaljord]

TikTok is not overhyped, it is here to stay, that's why they want to ban it. It's still growing like crazy and is way way more entertaining than any other social network by a long shot.

[dkersten]

> it is here to stay

That's what I heard about plenty of social platforms like this. Everyone thought Vine was here to stay too. Everyone thought Myspace was here to stay. Snapchat was huge at one point and now I no longer know anybody who still uses it. Maybe it will be like Facebook, but there's a big chance it won't. It's huge now, but its still relatively niche appeal in the grand scheme of tings. These things appear to be fickle. We will see.

[trca]

Just because you don't know anyone that uses Snapchat doesn't make that an authoritative source on popularity of a company. Snap's user base has grown consistently and show's no signs of slowing down, even against increase competition in the space (https://www.statista.com/statistics/545967/snapchat-app-dau/). TikTok is the "Vine replacement" since Vine was bought by Twitter and shutdown. Vine wasn't a "fad" that faded away, it was actively shutdown by its parent company, likely would still exist to this day in a non-insignificant way had that not happen.

[mike00632]

SnapChat still isn't profitable. After these years they still haven't figured out how to best monetize their platform are are sustained by their IPO money.

Vine was absurdly popular but couldn't figure out how to monetize short-form video content. I don't see how TikTok is going to overcome these same challenges.

Even YouTube had a long and slow road to profitability. Video is hard.

[dkersten]

Well, I used to know many people who used it and they have all stopped. I wasn’t basing it on “I don’t know anyone who uses it” but rather “everyone I know who used I no longer does”.

[skohan]

Why did twitter shut it down?

[giancarlostoro]

They never monetized it despite Vine getting people to join Twitter.

[moscovium]

> Everyone thought Vine was here to stay too.

Vine was loved and was shut down by a part time CEO.

> Snapchat was huge at one point and now I no longer know anybody who still uses it.

People under 25 still love and use snapchat.

Tiktok has 80 million MAUs, and is becoming the tool of cultural influence in the same way the Instagram did. I wouldn't underestimate the staying power of tiktok.

[rsa25519]

> Vine was loved and was shut down by a part time CEO.

Yep. Then the community moved to Musical.ly, then to TikTok. Although the company is gone, Vine is still around in spirit. And I think the same applies to TikTok, too

[op03]

They are fickle sort of like a Hurricane. Feels like over the last 20 year we have learnt how to scale things up quick i.e. spin up a hurricane.

What the hurricane does after its created or whether its controllable at all no one really knows. Making room for the type of characters who will claim they can control hurricanes. Expect these people to show up and disappear as these hurricanes spin up and fizzle out.

That said, I just hope figuring out whether hurricanes can be controlled doesn't take too many more years, and happens without too many more unpredictable side effects.

[odyssey7]

> Maybe it will be like Facebook

Speaking about Facebook the website (separate from Instagram and WhatsApp), I'd give it 50/50 odds that a major decline in market position will start by 2030. If it doesn't happen, it will be attributed to very strategic leadership.

[wolco]

In 2030?

I'd be surprised if aws was around.

If a new phone os didn't take over (at least on the android side)

I'd be surprised if the web wasn't still powered by php

I would be surprised to see rss version 23 make a come back.

[m3kw9]

The type of entertainment TikTok provides is getting tiring. Is like fb videos on turbo. Sugar high can only last so long

[akhilcacharya]

I'm 24 and my iPhone tells me I spend 2 hours on TikTok a day. This is up from about a year and a half ago, when i consumed it exclusively in YouTube compilations.

Their targeting and algorithmic curation is extremely, scary good.

[Kelteseth]

Maybe you are just not the target audience here? YouTube also has videos like TikTok and it still has a bazillion users...

[eugeniub]

Yeah the TikTok core audience and the Hacker News crowd have maybe a 1% overlap.

[WilTimSon]

Well, YouTube's core audience isn't going there for TikTok-style content (no judgement on that content either way.) They mostly come for vlogs, let's play's, tutorial videos, video essays, etc.

Also worth noting that YouTube is a money sink so it's not like it's the most lucrative business model.

[xzel]

I've heard the argument a few times YouTube actually loses money, besides just being a money sink. Does anyone have anything from Google talking about margins or profit/loss of youtube? I've never been able to find anything concrete on the issue. This is the best I've ever been able to find [1]

1. https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/3/21121207/youtube-google-al...

[hourislate]

It exposes the level of mental illness in America and around the world.

You have teens threatening to kill themselves if it gets banned. What will all these girls do if they can't get some attention and a dopamine hit every few hours. Woman are taking to Tik Tok and posting farewells crying and dancing. Some are even threatening the President.

The app is poison but perhaps it's no worse than Insta, Twatter and FB and all social media.

How many lives this shit ruins everyday, little by little is unimaginable. People living in the digital world instead of the real one.

[pm90]

Please don’t bring this kind of holier than thou preaching to this forum. Just because you’re not the target audience doesn’t mean you can call the users as being “mentally ill”. ALL humans crave dopamine hits (what brought you to this forum?).

Dance and music is how a certain demographic of humanity lives to express themselves, and there is an app that lets them do so. What the hell is your problem? Who are you to take it away from them?

[ledmirage]

just because people crave for dopamine hits so we should allow all kind of things? maybe we should allow durgs/heroin as well ? you do understand there are different consequences when you addicted to different things right, dancing vs estacy ? not to mention the potential privacy / national security issue with this app

[wolco]

You are not the target audience of his comment.

I appreciated the comment. It exposed me to something I didn't know was going on.

With regards to "who are you to take it away from them..."

I don't think the parent poster has that power.

The president does and he may ban it to protect users privacy.

Some people are parents of kids who use it and they would have the right to limit where and how their children can express themselves.

Countries like Egpyt are putting girls in jail for dancing on tiktok.

This has all of the making of the next footloose.

[pm90]

The President does not have the power to ban an Internet service. He may order executive agencies to investigate the company and take action based on what they find. There is no (non emergency) statute that allows the President to unilaterally shut down the service.

Parents of kids do have the authority to curtail their children’s online presence. This is not limited to TikTok, it is a common theme across all social media properties.

What Egypt does should not affect what technologies are permitted in the US. China bans Google and Facebook. Should we ban it too? This line of reasoning makes no sense.

[hourislate]

>what brought you to this forum?

I am only here for information/educational reasons, not entertainment. This is more about educating my mind.

>Dance and music is how a certain demographic of humanity lives to express themselves, and there is an app that lets them do so. What the hell is your problem? Who are you to take it away from them?

Maybe you haven't seen all the videos of young ladies threatening to kill themselves if the President goes through with it. Or the 1000's of people who have come to name calling and threats against the President.

I don't find that normal and I have a problem with it.

[pm90]

> Or the 1000's of people who have come to name calling and threats against the President.

Interesting that you would have an issue with “name calling” and “making threats” when that is all that the current POTUS does on Twitter. That is also a person who has real power, so the threats are not idle. By your own measure, Twitter should be banned before tiktok.

[phatfish]

Maybe Hacker News is next on Trumps ban list. Would you be happy about that?

Also, I would think carefully how productive your time spend here really is. Is surfing and commenting on HN providing any substantial "education"?

Personally i find it an entertaining way to waste some time, that does now and then enlighten me on a topic I didn't know about before, and have cause to want to learn more. But any real knowledge gained is through effort outside of HN.

[summitsummit]

if my life is going to get ruined anyway, I'd prefer to choose the option to pick my poison than to take the government/corporate mandated one.

[CPLX]

The most successful global consumer-facing company in world history sells sugar water.

[reaperducer]

If you mean Coca Cola, you're wrong.

[ascar]

If anything he would mean Pepsi, which is twice as big as Coca Cola (based on revenue). However, that you immediately think about Coca-Cola speaks for their superior branding.

[learc83]

Is that based on soft drink revenues or because Pepsi owns dozens of other non soft drink companies?

[hackstack]

Can you support this with a counter example? This statement by itself is a bit of a tease!

[oblio]

If he's basing his comment on the source, he probably means that Apple has a higher market cap.

[tmathmeyer]

why? coke is easily the most recognized brand on the planet.

[rvz]

The problem is with this specific demographic is they will grow out of TikTok and eventually stop using it due to fatigue or strange reasons like their parents joining in.*

This happened with Snap, Vine, YikYak, etc. They will just move on to the next social network craze that doesn't have their parents, grandparents or their next door neighbours friending you. Rinse and repeat.

* The exception to this rule is unless your parents is a Kardashian / West, Musk, or an Obama or some other famous celebrity.

[shigawire]

YikYak killed itself with changes that no on wanted or needed. Vine was killed by Twitter.

Otherwise I agree in principle but your examples aren't good.

[cscurmudgeon]

> TikTok is not overhyped, it is here to stay

The only constant in social apps is that the "apps that are here to stay" do not stay.

[enricozb]

> it's here to stay

Would you be surprised if it just disappears in a year or two, like Vine, Orkut, Myspace, and other "giants" of their day did? I personally wouldn't because these things just come and go. I think it's really hard to make the claim that "it's here to stay".

[untog]

Couldn’t you have said the same about Snapchat a few years ago? Not that it’s about to shut down, but it’s definitely not the white hot app it was hyped to be.

[skohan]

Snapchat is a very different use-case. Snapchat was built on being a sort of anti-social-media. It's all about ephemeral content, and not making it easy for content to be shared widely. TikTok has a lot more going for it in terms of intrinsic properties built around bringing more users into the platform. Snapchat is about having a more low-pressure online presence, TikTok is a "look at me" platform.

TikTok is a lot more analogous to Instagram: where Instagram used filters to allow normal people to create much more appealing photos, TikTok's music licensing allows average users to create videos with a much stronger emotional appeal than they can get on other platforms.

[patrickaljord]

I've tried Snapchat, never felt the same thing I'm getting with TikTok. TikTok is not being hyped to me, I genuinely get a good laugh out of it everytime I open it. Never had that with Snap or really any other social network. This is huge.

[jaybeeayyy]

I am very torn on this. On one hand, these types of apps do come and go quickly. On the other, everyone I've met that spends time on TikTok thoroughly enjoys the content far more than they ever have on any other app...it's almost a bit bizarre. My fiancee will be in tears laughing for hours some nights and it's unlike anything I've ever seen. My family never shared vines or youtube videos but now our group chat is completely full of TikTok links. I think people are underestimating how much people seriously love TikTok of all ages, races, classes etc.

[dakiol]

I've had exactly the opposite experience. What does your comment and mine tell us? Absolutely nothing.

[zerowangtwo]

I don't think there's ever been a social media platform as widely loved but its users as TikTok, ever.

[untog]

That’s your personal experience. But I can guarantee that if you rewind a few years you’d be able to find many people who would say that Snapchat gave them the kind of experience Instagram never did, or whatever. Snapchat was huge. TikTok is huge. But there’s no guarantee of permenance.

[patrickaljord]

Snap never got to the level of TikTok and it was always really niche but mostly, it required IRL friends to send awkward Snaps too. TikTok doesn't have this limitation and is the lowest friction to entertainment social media ever. Of course, nothing is forever, even Facebook, but as far a these things go, TikTok was in for the long shot.

[yushuf]

People don't realize how addicted a lot of people are to Tik Tok. It's scary in terms of thinking how much time is 'wasted', but in terms of a product, it can reach the popularity of Youtube.

[seppin]

It will suck eventually, politics and boomers will arrive and ruin it.

[ta17711771]

> way way more entertaining than any other social network by a long shot.

ahahaha

[meddlepal]

> an overhyped app that’s easy to copy

If only I could have a nickel every time someone on HN says something like this.

This site sometimes... smh

[Sivart13]

I heard people say this about Facebook for years, that it was just the next Myspace and it would be gone in a year. Platforms are temporary until they're not.

[oblio]

The thing is, people really mistake the Wild West days of a market with the mature days. People were saying the same thing about Windows, for example, back in the 1990s. Stuff like:

"Back in the day we had Commodore and Amiga and many other platforms that slowly died, Windows will go their way. Unix will outlast it and kill it off."

30 years later and you could base a Fortune 500 company off of Windows, alone.

Same story with Facebook. People are comparing things to the pre-Facebook days without realizing that social media is a lot more mature now. They're presenting Snapchat as a failure when it's still growing (in users and revenue), Orkut as an example of a rise and fall when it was only popular in Brazil, while Tik Tok is global.

Tik Tok seems to have carved a niche in a pretty mature market. That's hard to do.

[AlexandrB]

So is Facebook temporary and TikTok is going to take over or is Facebook here to stay and TikTok is temporary? This seems like a zero-sum game for the most part.

[patrickaljord]

It's not, Facebook is mostly email with pictures and is here to stay. TikTok may be eating Instagram's lunch though.

[jmcgough]

This isn't laughing, it's desperation. Either they get bought now or they lose everything. India already banned them and they're terrified of a repeat.

I think over time social networks have found more stable userbases. Facebook isn't going anywhere, neither are Instagram or (unless the feds intervene) TikTok. It's not like it was in the early days where everyone abandoned the old platform, because the new one was so much better.

[paganel]

FB has become an “over-40” thing in my country, younger people only use it now for messaging (WhatsApp is still preferred, though).

[aledalgrande]

The interesting thing is that US has bigger problems than TikTok right now.

[dealpete]

You have a gift for understatement.

[cjsawyer]

I see that as the point in Trump’s timing. What other story is being ignoring by focusing on this?

[gmantg]

An attempt to delay elections?

[iliveinchina]

You are likely underestimating the staying power of ByteDance. They have a portfolio of successful apps within China, such as Toutiao, and have probably overtaken Baidu to be the 3rd most important software company in China (after Alibaba and Tencent). Unlike Vine or Snap, they have a lot of e-commerce revenue and are a major sales platform.

Should they be allowed to continue expanding internationally, something like a Facebook or Amazon peer would be the more relevant comparison.

[one_electron]

"easy to copy" isn't really a factor here tbh, seeing how tiktok (along with vine, snap, facebook, etc) is a classic example of network effects.

[paganel]

Snap and Vine have never been a thing like TikTok currently is in my country. The previous social networks that were as hyped and as used as TikTok were FB and IG.

[MangoCoffee]

>it’s the latest fad and would be smart for them to cash out before the next new thing hits

i used to think FB is just a fad but its been 16 years and it is still going. Not as fancy as it once was but enough to make billions.

who to say TikTok won't last? if it last more than 10 years. its already earn back all its cost and some more.

[baby]

On one hand I want to agree with you, on the other hand I recognize that you are probably the same age or older as me and we are old goofs that probably don't understand what constitute something that is going to work for the generations after ours.

[golergka]

> 3 years later, it’s grown like crazy because it’s the latest fad and would be smart for them to cash out before the next new thing hits

That's exactly the thoughts I had in 2010 about Facebook's 10 billion valuation.

[ffggvv]

i don’t think snap is dead. not sure why people keep lumping it in with vine.

that’s like saying twitter is dead