The attraction to tt was the algorithm. Yt’s algo is garbo. Yt just gives you more of the same, whereas tt would magically align you with your people and your needs. Yt is sorta trying to do that right now, but it’s all from spying on you, rather than algorithmically.

It’s like the difference between having a conversation with somebody irl about having itchy feet and then suddenly your algorithm is filled with ads for views cures for itchy feet, vs slowly figuring out that you’re neurodivergent, and then through watch time and liked comments, starting to feed you stuff that other people like you like, and you end up in whatever corner that is most useful to you.

It’s the difference between your platform ONLY being one video at a time and the devs HAVE to figure out what you MIGHT like, vs a platform that feeds you choices and a feed and tries to guess your categories and shit. It’s very, very different, and imo tt was much, much better.

It’s funny but, when people talk about what tiktok is just x-thing, they’re really really telling on themselves. Like if people say it’s just slop or teens dancing, it’s pretty well known, at least to people who have USED tiktok, that that’s really fucking bad unless the person is themselves a teen. Unfortunately, it’s usually a conservative senator or someone’s dad and it’s just eewwwww