TikTok overtook Google as the most visited website in 2021 | Hacker News Reader

TikTok overtook Google as the most visited website in 2021

qz.com

What should we make of this? A successful business model? A warning sign that humans can't control themselves in the face of addictive products? Or just another fad, to be replaced by another fad in a short time?

Could easily be all three?

My main takeaway is that advertising works. TikTok seems to do almost nothing new and does it in a way that isn't new either. The advertising for it was insane, though and it exploded quickly as a result.

I disagree a bit. I'm not sure how much this has been a part of why it's taken off, but TikTok does one quite interesting that it took me a while to fully grasp the implications of: indexing on sound and allowing easy reuse of existing ones. When you create a TikTok video, there's an option to reuse the sound of an existing video, and when viewing one, you can click something to see both the original video with that sound as well as all the other ones that used it chronologically. Lowering the bar to reusing a sound and adding custom video to the point where a non-technical user can do it with little effort essentially has basically enabled the proliferation of video memes, which before were created and evolved much more slowly than purely image-based ones due to the amount of effort needed to create and modify them. The fact that no one else seems to have caught on to this basically gives them a monopoly on this type of content, which makes it incredibly sticky.

For me, I received a cool video on FB Messenger, with a TikTok URL. So I opened it and could just see it without making an account. That felt fresh already.

Then I decided to get the app, and instantly I got a stream of actually interesting content from my region. It made an account for me with user# and I haven’t updated it since (maybe a year ago); no phone number, no e-mail.

In time it sort of adapted to my interests and now I have a constant stream of homesteading, woodworking, computer stuff, booms, women etc. It feels very positive. I don’t even remember ever seeing a divisive video.

At this date, with no affiliation, I feel TikTok has a good algorithm that actually takes into consideration your interests, delivers you fresh stuff and is not boosted with real shit metrics. I use it once or twice per week, but when I do I binge.

That the google search formula excludes new websites so efficiently that the web is getting smaller every day.

Successful business model mostly. Genuinely the most refreshing social network I’ve had the pleasure of using since early Tumblr. Might be a fad but only time will tell.

On paper TT doesn’t do anything new but in practice it’s a completely different experience from every other social network — it’s like early YouTube recommendation rabbit holes, StumbleUpon, and Tumblr had a baby.

Hard to say what to make of this without more context. If they literally just mean more DNS requests, that’s not a good metric. If they’re looking at just individual web requests on mobile devices, loading 20 assets in an app and flicking through videos would easily inflate that number.

It's nothing to be surprised at as Tiktok can become a good marketing tool for companies; it would also be helpful for niche information.

It is nothing more than a vector for Chinese control of online mindshare. I still cannot fathom why it hasn't been banned in every country.

what is online mindshare? and why is it illegal for a country to gain it.

if tiktok was American would it be legal.

as a concept, it's not much different from vine which was owned by Twitter.

ethics-wise Facebook has probably done worse

same reason why Facebook, Instagram aren't banned.

Trump tried it, but the court ruled he didn't have the power to ban an app.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com