Good riddance to the lowest form of entertainment.
On the whole I now get a mix of interesting factual content that aligns well with my taste - and a frictionless UI that I prefer to most of the alternatives.
Admittedly a fair chunk of the content is ripped from YouTube but it's a great discovery mechanism and you can later subscribe to the source.
Genuine question - have you tried it or are you going on reputation?
No, I haven't tried and I won't. Yes, I'm sure it has things that interest me. So what? The point is it's another one of these time sinks that profit off your need for entertainment. Ill entertaint myself, thank you.
Your argument is the same as "I have nothing to hide, who cares if the government tracks my face everywhere I go and listens to everything I do?" Bad argument, focused too narrowly on personal experience.
Is "tired" here a less polite way to say "you're not the first person to say this and I disagree"? I'm trying to understand whether I need to feel insulted here or not.
> I don't care if you agree
Well you kinda do or else you wouldn't have come back four days later to post this.
> I'm just not ok with the amount of data being collected, and the party that's collecting it, regardless of what that data actually is.
Which strikes me as a fiercely absolutist policy - possibly to the point of being irrational. I actual presume you do care about the amount and type of data collection or else you'd be raging at - I dunno - the national park service tracking aggregate visitor counts. So I'm going to presume that this is a rhetorical flourish, rather than a statement I'm meant to take literally.
The trouble with rhetorical flourishes it that it leaves me in the dark about what you actually do mean and it's therefore hard to respond.
> Your argument is the same as "I have nothing to hide, who cares if the government tracks my face everywhere I go and listens to everything I do?"
No. My argument is remarkably different to that.
If TikTok actually declines or dies, it's not going to be because of where the software is made.
A social media algorithm is a much scarier thing than an inert object, and one controlled by a totalitarian enemy government even moreso.
We all live with some uncomfortable amount of dissonance on who's collecting our data. I personally take great issue with just opening the door to my life to China by installing TikTok. I don't have other social media (not interested in a semantics debate about what constitutes social media, my purpose in saying this is that I try to avoid data-hoovers in general), but I'm not perfect at avoiding unwanted data collection. I just don't see a need to make it so easy.
So you don't watch any media? TV? Documentaries? I'm not clear what distinction you're making between "good" media and "bad" media. I've never been geek shamed on watching Tom Scott before.
I stopped using that word on HN because whenever I suggest that "screens are addictive" I get down voted (and it's not as much that it bothers me to lose imaginary points, it's that then it gets hidden and people don't get to see it, at which point I'm just yelling into the vacuum).
You know - after all that exercise, skill learning and art creating...
I suppose it rests on what is meant by "completely different" but I've been relatively satisfied by the variety.