I don't think this will come as any surprise, but I dislike Tik Tok.
It has always amused me a bit when I say that something is near valueless, and the response is about how much money the company is worth. Plenty of companies are worth a lot, but don't do much good for humanity. Most of Wall Street fit into this category. But, it is interesting with the ByteDance owned Tik Tok in the US, because essentially it is going to get banned for the ambiguous reason of "national security", even though what it does is no more, and maybe less intrusive than Facebook and Twitter.
But it is an interesting case from a user perspective, because there are plenty of "content" creators on the platform that are making significant amounts of money from it from the US. What this means is that essentially all of their hard work selling their bodies and souls over the last however many years, accounts for nothing. Sure, they can go to another platform like YouTube shorts or other alternatives, but the follower list that they have developed, doesn't follow.
They are starting from scratch.
From a platform perspective, they love to have this situation so that users once invested, have little desire to leave organically. They are beholden to the platform, and the platform's advertisers, because that is how they are so "valuable". users are shackled, imprisoned, slaves. They can't run, because to do so, will mean that they will lose their income. The ad revenue model is highly lucrative for the platforms, lucrative for a fraction of the creators, and extractive and abusive of the rest.
Not only this, the content creators don't own anything, have zero say, and can do nothing if the platform or in this case the government says, no more. It is actually quite incredible that the US government is making this move, but then, it is all about money again, isn't it? Why should all that "value" of 170 million users be extracted from the country to China, when it can be hijacked by US-based companies instead?
They don't care about the current users, because they know that those users will be forced to do what they are told, and even if a content creator is left destitute, there are plenty more who will replace them. The creator space is filled with people looking to do whatever it takes so they don't have to get a real job. I get it, real jobs suck. People talk about "wage slavery" but what is it called for the earning creators on Tik Tok if their work is not only not theirs, but is just cut off at the whim of some old people in government?
Own you fools, Own!
It is fucking ridiculous that in this day and age, with all these young people who talk about how tech savvy they are and how they are raised as digital natives, calling out "ok boomer!" to people like me (not a boomer by a long way), that they are so useless that they are relying on the platforms that are what.... owned by the boomers!
Rather than jumping on the latest tech, rather than decentralising through these online communities that they value so much, rather than building what works for them, outside of the system that they think doesn't, rather than owning - they keep on renting instead. Because they are far less creative and far less risk seeking than they believe themselves to be. And, far less willing to take on responsibility for themselves.
They will inherit trillions, but don't want to own.
Fucking idiots.
So, rather than starting to build the decentralised systems that they can all invest their time, effort, and inheritances into in the future so that they own their experience and can't get cancelled by corporations or governments, they throw their hands up in the air, take to the streets, and complain to their government screaming, it isn't fair, give my toys back!
I don't know what will happen with Tik Tok in the supreme court in the US, but the witch isn't dead, because the governments that control every aspect of our lives, whether we need them to or not, lives on. We keep feeding them grapes, and fanning their lard asses, while they make decisions that benefit them, and harm us.
They need a bucket of water thrown over them.
I'm melting....
Taraz [ Gen1: Hive ]
Posted Using INLEO
