It's not like people aren't trying other platforms — but those platforms don't surface the same kind of content, don't provide the same reach, or are actively pushing their own agendas.
Fair enough, but you should post your content elsewhere too, as a backup, and to reach more people perhaps.
While platforms dominate, instead of content dominating (see podcasts where this seems to be happening), you will always be a prisoner to what happens on the platform.
I definitely do but what's interesting in doing this is that it actually reveals to me how much each app really has its own culture. Sometimes I cross-post if it's a big project that I've been working on. But, I've found a lot more success in tailoring the content to the audience on each platform rather than trying to force something upon them.
Another hilarious observation: they flippantly tell you not to put your eggs in one basket while strategizing and salivating over how to make the sole basket in which everyone must put their eggs.
would you say the same thing about Meta and Google? Clearly social media monopoly is not the issue. In fact, USA government want US dominance in global social media, digital world, and digital marketplaces.
I’m sad to lose the cross stitching videos, the travel log clips, the live streams of people playing instruments, and the tons of animal videos. Trying Instagram Reels, everything feels performative, which is annoying.
Maybe this is a chance for the broader population to understand they shouldn't get attached to a free online service that can be shutdown for many reasons outside their control.
If you are an "influencer" build a following on multiple platforms.
If you are a business owner engage in marketing on multiple platforms.
If you need a video to tell you how to bake cupcakes or clean a kettle, learn to use Google.
This is so flippant. I do read. And I've been online long enough to know that things disappear. I read slashdot in the hay day and was on Friendster, and MySpace.
If Hacker News disappeared, people would be sad because it was a unique place. And others would say "just go on Reddit it's the same thing."
And those people would be mistaking functionality for community.
Yes, all things pass. But if you read what I said at the top, it's not that we should expect things to last forever. It's that people are flip about TikTok in part because they don't seem to have more than a surface level understanding of it — or a completely different idea of what it was than the people who really used it.
Vibrant communities are perhaps a product of, but certainly not defined solely by their territory.
Luckily they're comprised of humans (mostly? Probably another discussion), and the ability to migrate is component to their nature; the good ones find greener pastures and adapt as necessary to define their next generation.
Yet on this very website it's likely majority opinion that if you want to start a startup you should move to SF.
A lot of those people have actively tried to build communities on those other platforms, but those platforms algorithms actively work against the emergence of the types of groups we've seen on TikTok.
Knot tying, woodman tips and tricks, off grid tips, cooking (from basic knife holding to now knowing what a roux is, and how to properly make a gumbo my kids love), stories from people I would never have known, movie trivia, historical accounts, and being exposed to music I would never have otherwise found.
I truly feel a loss. I have changed aspects of my daily life for the better due to TikTok.
And I also watched too many cute animals and "don't talk to cops" videos.
Not being noticed due to low quality algorithms. To me TikTok was the first proof that recommendation algorithms can work. I have been using manual curation for so long because so many times I open YouTube or any other social media with the intent to consume content and get that same old feeling "there's nothing to watch" like flipping channels on TV. Just scrolling unattractive thumbnails.
TikTok may have been too effective and addictive, but it undeniably worked. I started watching many niche and interesting content creators that the other platforms wouldn't recommend to me.
> To me TikTok was the first proof that recommendation algorithms can work.
This sounds great at first. Now imagine you are not just into wood working, indie bands or travel logs, but instead slightly interested in right wing or islamist ideology. Within a short time you are flooded with political or religious propaganda. In Europe that has been a real problem. See for example https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000231964/auf-tiktok-re... or https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/tiktok-afd-100... (Sorry, German only.) The right-wing AfD politician Maximilian Krah became so "popular" on TikTok that the platform had to artificially limit his reach! (Kudos to them, but it shows the extent of the problem.)
To be clear, FB and YT have the same problem of creating filter bubbles, but the algorithm is less effective and therefore less dangerous (but still dangerous enough!)
I actually find the opposite is frue. YouTube constantly recommends more of the same of anything I watch, so watching one extremist or even extremist-adjacent video means I will get flooded.
What's so good about tiktok is that it keeps my interests thoroughly mixed. I'm bilingual and I see content from multiple countries about different interests and it keeps me in touch with all of them plus presenting topical and trending content. It also seamlessly measures my interest so if I naturally skip a couple of videos about a topic I'll see less and less until I see none.
> YouTube constantly recommends more of the same of anything I watch, so watching one extremist or even extremist-adjacent video means I will get flooded.
That's true. I got pretty frustrated by YT's recommendation algorithm. The front page got pretty bad and repetitive. However, there's always some good stuff in the right column when you select "similar".
But you know what you can also do? Actively search for stuff! I wouldn't feel comfortable putting my media consumption behavior into the hands of some addictive algorithm. (HN is already bad enough :)
> It also seamlessly measures my interest so if I naturally skip a couple of videos about a topic I'll see less and less until I see none.
Sure, but while you are interested it keeps feeding you the same stuff, like YT on steroids. This is all fine when it comes to hobbies, music, travel logs, etc., but it gets dangerous with other content. People don't really think "I'm not really interested into this right wing or IS propaganda videos anymore, I'll give it a break".
My guess is that TikTok paid for their format more than anyone else. By posting on YouTube it might cannibalize the earnings. Now that it is banned it might as well be on YouTube or some other platform.
I can post identical videos to different platforms and get massively different reach. I have one video that has >2m views on Reels, but only 200 views on TikTok, and vice-versa.
Success on one platform doesn't always mean success on all.
How much money has MrBeast made outside of YouTube? (excluding Amazon)
> I think a lot of people on here never spent much time on TikTok and it shows.
I agree whole heartedly, along with a horrendous dearth of empathy but unfortunately I find very common in Hacker News comments. Regardless of whether or not you feel that 170 million Americans all fell for Chinese propaganda, there is still a profound sense of loss.
For me personally, I've been writing and performing music on TikTok for about 3 years now and frequently found community and collaboration the likes of which I've not even come close to seeing anywhere else except maybe YouTube 10 or 15 years ago. Community they gave me the confidence to release music for the first time and folks who would actually listen to it.
I had a rather small following, but orders of magnitude of more than anywhere else IRL or on the internet
One of the coolest things for me was seeing a musician start out, and then several months later seeing that they'd blown up. And this happened often! There are a lot of musicians (artists too, etc) who never would have surfaced.
People say "you can just post on xyz" and yet none of those places surface these kinds of creators.
Many of the other sites are either pay-to-play at this point, or surface content that aligns with something they're looking to surface.
There were vibrant communities, subcultures.
Real issues were aired there. Real people connected. From the early days of Covid it provided a window into a broader world.