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.
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.
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.
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.
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”.
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.
> 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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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]
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.
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?
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
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.