[Cthulhu_]

Steelmanning? It's infinite content, meaning our customers will never run out of new and interesting videos to watch, which will inspire them to feed prompts into our systems too and have it generate more videos. Money can be generated from multiple angles; we can charge a premium for generating videos beyond a small free tier once we've hooked the prompters, we can offer people or companies the option to promote their own videos so they get put into people's feeds, and we can insert generated ads from big corporate sponsors. It'll be lit.

Why should a commercial enterprise that has had billions of investments have benefits outside of earning money? Besides the entertainment value that the masses get from making and viewing these, of course.

[smartmic]

Social media is also a wonderful tool for influencing participants and controlling them in the long term. In other words, behind the economic purposes there is a darker, more profound effect that is dangerous in the hands of a few powerful players. In the case of TikTok, that would be the Chinese state. Why shouldn't US Big Tech also be interested in this kind of power, in addition to the extra revenue?

[Cthulhu_]

Yup, which is also why various social media owners bent the knee to the administration, and now TikTok is about to become state-controlled too. The long term effects of subtle social media propaganda will become apparent in the years to come. Or, will be vocalized, they already are apparent - I'm convinced social media and related, 24/7 "news" media are a big factor in the right shift in politics worldwide.

[suddenlybananas]

This is your steelmanning? God it sounds awful.

[Cthulhu_]

I know, right?