However, now I think it's the same infinite scroll we already had in twitter and reddit -- but instead of text and images, now it's just videos.
At the beginning the content was really dumb and bad, but after some time it became way better. Now my feed is basically cooking recipes, chemistry experiments, interesting physics facts, bits from my favorite comedians, etc. Maybe Youtube learned my tastes, or maybe the content creators learned how to exploit better the platform. Either way I'd say I'm happy with the result now.
I still think some people are getting brainwashed by certain content, but in the same way as they were getting brainwashed in twitter and reddit.
its very telling how, while youtube (classic) also has these same ingredients, the ux of looking through a menu is far less addicting than the slot machine mechanism from swiping up
Then again, we lost that battle with misogynistic, language-rotting, and violent rap music because we were too worried about being called racists, so there might not be hope we'll do better this time around.
It is so easy to find reports and evidence of how Tiktok could be of great value to people.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/16/dining/tiktok-ban-cooking...
https://www.today.com/popculture/books/what-is-booktok-meani...