Comment by donatj
4 days ago
As a casual observer, I don't understand why YouTube Shorts isn't the obvious successor? The UI is better than TikTok ever was and a lot of the most popular creators are already mirroring their content there?
4 days ago
As a casual observer, I don't understand why YouTube Shorts isn't the obvious successor? The UI is better than TikTok ever was and a lot of the most popular creators are already mirroring their content there?
Shorts has a way worse algorithm, I don’t use TikTok because it’s too addictive but I get bored of YouTube shorts after like 5-10mins most times, which actually for me is a Feature but for YouTube itself is a drawback.
Not disagreeing with you as TikTok obviously works for a lot of people, but its recommendation algorithm never came anywhere near working for me after several attempts at it over fairly long periods of time.
I can't say I like YouTube shorts a lot, but there's often some I find interesting in a long enough window of time — the problem there is more the signal to noise ratio than the volume of the signal. TikTok just feels like my personal signal is just nonexistent.
Sometimes I wish I knew what was going on under the hood. There's such a huge difference between how much people like TikTok and how I feel about the content, and I don't understand why TikTok would have such a hard time with me in particular.
In general I'm kind of souring on algorithmic-driven social media, or at least short format (video or text). I don't have anything against it in principle, I just find I enjoy longer format posts and articles more in experience.
Tiktoks algorithm takes a while to get used to but it is pretty tameable. Quick way that works for me:
- avoid attempts based on "unliking" things, I'm pretty sure it treats it as engagement. Instead swipe bad content away.
- avoid "accidentally engaging", like replying to a comment you feel is wrong or watching something you don't like because you were trying to see where the speech was going. Disengage ASAP with unwanted.
- positive feedback for whatever video starts getting close to what you want.
- positive implies staying the whole clip, liking, viewing comments, commenting, liking comments and the strongest of all, sharing the video (you can send it to a telegram conversation with yourself or whatever, not sure if the link you shared ever being opened is accounted for but I think nope). Do this on purpose, like if a video is cool just open the comment section and like all comments without looking.
-try to "navigate". If you want to see tech and it's currently showing you music, maybe engage with music production or Spotify tricks when they appear. It might not be the tech you're looking for, but it's closer to tech than a teenage girl dancing. You'll eventually be shown things more relevant to you, at which point you grab that current.
Also do not try to rush the process. I think updating your interests is not instant, and session time might be a metric as well.
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I'm in your boat. I tried out TikTok out a few times, including making a new account, but it never showed me good content. I had maybe one or two longer sessions, but never felt the need to go back, like I (unfortunately) do with Reddit or Youtube. I could never understand why it was so popular, but maybe I'm just a curmudgeon.
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Anecdotally TikTok has the best content for me as well. I can’t even place my finger on why I like it more than IG. I don’t know if it’s the slight differences in the content if surfaces. Even if I am just looking through music on both apps (I play guitar) something about TikTok is more pleasant and I really am not sure what.
Same with Instagram Reels. Occasionally I'd be scrolling going "man my Tiktok feed is bad today", and then I realise it's IG.
At least between Subway Surfer Reddit narrations and other garbage, TikTok shows me stuff I know I want to see. Instagram reels will start with something I'm interested in and very quickly pivot to people seemingly in the midst of psychosis, or literal porn. No matter how much I manually report as not interested.
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It's strange to me everyone acting as like TikTok's algorithm is completely unassailable and will always be better than the competition for years and decades to come. Tech moves fast and Meta/YT aren't just standing around.
If their only differentiating feature is the algorithm, Insta would eat them for lunch eventually the same they did for Snapchat after knocking off that app's big/only claim to fame (stories).
The discussion seems to be TikTok's algorithm is so good no one could ever possibly compete. I really don't think that's the case and TikTok really has no moat whatsoever.
> It's strange to me everyone acting as like TikTok's algorithm is completely unassailable and will always be better than the competition for years and decades to come.
I'm not seeing this sentiment. More that none of its competitors are so obviously ahead of the pack that we can easily predict TikTok's natural successor.
5-10mins seems like a perfect algorithm to me.
If you have more time, then you can watch normal youtube videos or TV shows...
there are so many low quality shorts, really makes it feel like a waste of time. never had that feeling on tiktok
I feel a lot of people have compare TikTok that they have used for countless of hours and where the algorithm has zero'd in in their preferences to a more vanilla YT Shorts. I used shorts for a few months heavily, and pretty much every video was in some way relevant to my interests (which is also why I don't consume short form video anymore, it's waaaay to addictive).
It doesn't need to be better than TikTok though, just better than xiaohongshu
Maybe people developed a fetish for Chinese.
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A large part of it is obviously negative polarization: you tell people they can't use a Chinese app, they're going to use a different Chinese app. Hence the pictures of Luigi.
It's worth asking why Reels/Shorts didn't take off and those companies had to ask for their competition to be banned instead. Everyone agrees that "the algorithm is better", but this is very hard to quantify. Perhaps something about surfacing smaller creators? Quantity/quality of invasive advertising? Extent to which people feel particular kinds of rage content is being forced on them?
Main reason besides the algorithm is in my opinion that TikTok has wide but hard boundaries when it comes to content. This leads to diverse but relatively safe content.
It is not 4chan where you think twice before clicking a link to avoid emotional damage. It is also not Reddit or Youtube where you do not bother to go because you permanently encounter stuff that is inconsequentially blocked and you are still not safe from trauma. I think most platforms other than TikTok try to be too strict, fail to enforce their unrealistic rules in any comprehensible form and therefore suck for most intellectually curious users.
This has been my experience and it is what people are reporting from red note.
In comparison to instagram I have found it far easier to explore, for instance, black women making leftist political critiques of Harris engaged in long conversations with black women who were actively supporting Harris.
Similarly, it has been much easier to find discussions about Palestine, labor rights, indigenous US culture, and numerous other topics.
I think those conversations are probably find-able on Ig or Yt, but I have had much more difficult time with those platforms. It's been hard for me to find much engaging content that is close enough to my (admittedly anarchistic) political and cultural views that the conversation changes what I think in useful ways, so I avoid that work on things like FB. These platforms do suck for doing anything other than keeping up with pictures of my nieces.
My feeling is that in general the TT algo doesn't really care about US politics so it just shows me engaging content, whatever that might be for me.
People here can call that "addictive", but in doing so it quickly discards any agency for people who have any actual political disagreements with the radically centrist US political mainstream.
I am used to that flippant dismissal- Allen Dulles would have rather believed in mind control than believe that US military personal who encountered Koreans were swayed by genuine empathy for a legitimate political-economic position.
By contrast, my feeling is that various other governments don't really care what folks in other countries think about the world so as long as it's not objectively porn or gore they just let conversations happen.
That is, of course, quite dangerous if your power relies on maintaining narrative consistency for the population you rule- that's why China and other authoritarian folks do things like limit what can happen on social media in their countries...
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reels cannot seem to give me anything other than America’s funniest home videos style content and thirst traps, while on tiktok I get critical analysis of todays events, planet money-esque content, discussion of analytic philosophers i’m interested in, etc. it’s truly no contest.
Reels just wants to basically treat me as a generic male with some bias towards what my social graph likes. I also hate that my likes are public on reels.
e: not sure why this is downvoted, just trying to provide color to an earnest question
This is exactly my problem. Instagram thinks they can just apply your demographics to an algorithm and find what you like. Tiktok figures out your demographic based on what you like. Tiktok listens, ineffectually tries to sell you things, and gives you what you enjoy; Instagram tries to fit you to a mold, and then sell things to that mold, then give you slop popular within that mold.
Planet, money, style economic analysis, is that the vibes woman?
But I would be curious how to make sure I get that kind of content I would love philosophy and current events.
Somehow I’ve trained my algorithm is only show me superhero clips, I think because I was watching all the Marvel movies during the pandemic and then didn’t really use it again since then
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I've never saw Luigi or Aaron Bushnell suggested to me by YouTube, unless I search them
I think that's why, just saying
Rednote and TikTok has 'novelty' content type that originally cultivated in mainland China. The memes, reactions pic, etc don't really exist on reels/shorts.
My god, in this thread you can tell who actually used TikTok and who only read about it
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I don't use TikTok, but my understanding is that they are just a lot better than anyone else with the algorithm. Somehow where Meta built a social graph, TikTok built a graph of videos (no need to know who you are, they can just suggest videos based on other videos you watch). And it's apparently difficult to catch up (presumably because they have more users so more data to make better predictions).
That would, IMO, explain why people use TikTok and not something else.
As to where they go after TikTok is banned... I feel like there is also a factor of "Oh you want to ban chinese apps? Let me show you". Not sure whether it will last, though.
I'm skeptical that the algorithm is actually "better" and it's not just that the end users have fed TikTok a ton more data points about their personal likes and dislikes.
Of course an app you have used for thousands of hours is going to know you better than the one you tried for half an hour
Then be prepared to be surprised? I don't know why its better but it actually is night and day different. The best uneducated way I can describe it is YouTube sticks you into a model that only classifies people in large groups. Oh you watch video game streamers, you may like this alt-right talking heads. TikTok has a model that is tailored just for you. Oh you like video game streamers that play Tarkov? Here are some videos of other games similar to Tarkov.
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Try it. I've been using Youtube for a decade and its recommendations are a total crapshoot these days. TikTok figured out my preferences within 15 minutes just based on which videos I liked and watched, and it can change course extremely quickly if you get bored of a certain topic.
The total number of hours I spent Youtube must outnumber the total number of hours I spent on TikTok by at least 100:1.
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When I tried TikTok for the first time in 2020, it had my preferences dialed in within about 15 minutes.
I tried reels when it first released, and gave up after an hour of constantly being shown videos of scantily clad women.
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it absolutely is, i routinely do a vanilla algo run on reels vs tiktok to compare and it’s crazy how much better it is.
reels is really, really bad - it is surprisingly hard to get it to stop showing you some combination of “funny prank videos” and onlyfans funnel content.
> I'm skeptical that the algorithm is actually "better" and it's not just that the end users have fed TikTok a ton more data points about their personal likes and dislikes.
I've watched probably 1000s of hours of youtube and it's still pushing crap at me that I would never watch in a million years (edit: eg "How to create Smart Contracts using ChatGPT" or "Abusive tough guy picks fight w the WRONG GUY!"). Maybe it's better if you like a specific genre of video essays or whatever but in terms of a replacement for tiktok it's completely irrelevant.
Reels is at least in the conversation, but the UX is ass and the culture there is a dumpster fire. Granted, I haven't had a meta account for about a decade (the ad obsession just destroys the experience) so this is all hearsay.
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> not just that the end users have fed TikTok a ton more data points about their personal likes and dislikes
Well, and what about the actual content? If all you have is a bunch of garbage it doesn't matter how good your algorithm is if all it can do is find the best garbage to push at the user.
As others said, you should try it. I did, and I was impressed how quickly it gets me to lose a lot of time.
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I suspect that the algorithm is taking in inputs that maybe we don’t consider. Not just swipes or likes, but maybe even how still the phone is while you watch it or if you blink less, signs you’re more focused on the video. Maybe they don’t have access to that telemetry but I think that’s kind of the vein of how they measure attention more than just touchscreen actions
Also, Tiktok don't even require you to be a user to use, exactly because it's kinda irrelevant for them. They will build the algo based on which videos you liked, for how many seconds, replays, etc etc.
I use both and YouTube Short produces mostly just garbage for me. AI voice videos that will get your attention, but has little content. TikTok's algorithm on the other hand is much better and provides quality, half-long-form content.
Shorts is garbage.
There are so many UI elements on top of video that end up blocking what you're trying to see. There is no way to hide them.
YouTube also destroyed its search.
As someone that uses both, YouTube shorts it's _not_ superior. Two very simple reasons:
1. the algorithm sucks 2. it will consistently fail to load content quickly enough when scrolling unwanted content
I spend a lot of time on YT, and less time on Instagram... and 0 time on TikTok, where I never created an account.
YT Shorts exist exclusively for YT creators who want to publish bite-sized pieces of content for their audience with a much lower expectation of polish than their normal longer form content. Perhaps the algorithm also presents "random" YouTubers', too, but the vast majority of what I see is put out by the publishers I'm already following (or other very similar publishers in the same ecosystem).
I would suggest that TikTok's successor is Insta Reels. Reels are almost exclusively entertainment and because they tie into Instagram's broader user/connections network the UX is much better than TikTok. Nobody goes to Instagram to figure out how to replace their garbage disposal -- this is squarely YT domain. If YT Shorts can make inroads in the entertainment market [without feeling like a commercial break between pieces of actual content, which is the impression I have and the way I use it].
It's not as addictive. TikTok mastered the hyper-addictive algorithm.
IMHO good riddance. Anything bad for the mindless addictive chum industry is good for humanity. Now do Instagram, Facebook, Xhitter, etc.
> The UI is better than TikTok ever was
I cannot disagree more. I just scroll on tiktok and tiktok populates the scrolling with videos I want to see, and it takes about ten minutes to signal to tiktok what content you like and don't like. Youtube, meanwhile, is an exercise in a far too-busy UI with thumbnails and comments and text and buttons—it's inherently a desktop app shoved into a web browser. Nice if you want to search for a specific topic and watch a four-hour video on it, but terrible for entertainment or killing time.
The only use I have for youtube are in solving these two problems: 1) where can I find a music video and 2) how do I do x
...but the focus on the interface obscures why youtube shorts won't ever take off: youtube is extremely bad at pushing content I want to watch. I've heard this over and over and over again and I know it's true for me, too.
Let's see if the ActivityPub Loops in time (made by the creator of Pixelfed): https://loops.video/
If I'm not mistaken the 'killer feature' of Tiktok is not the player, but the editor (Capcut?)
Yes, although Capcut is a separate piece of software. You can in theory make content with it for any app. In practice, Tiktok is so dominant that a lot of popular Reels content has Tiktok watermarks on it.
Every time in the last year that anyone has shared me a link to a short video on Facebook or Instagram, it has a TikTok watermark on it. This leads me to assume that most of the content on FB or Insta that I would actually want to see originally comes from TikTok.
No 2x speed playback doesn't help
> I don't understand why YouTube Shorts isn't the obvious successor
It might be eventually.
(GenZ) People are migrating to RedNote now to lift a middle finger. It's more of a meme.
Because Youtube shorts is awful, at least me, as a user.
Most of the content there, it's, well, "shorts", cuts from full videos of podcasts, etc. It lacks real users. It's basically the current youtube creators doing content for Youtube Shorts.
Let alone how the algo it's worse, and you can't download videos :)
Shorts is absolute trash. It does not have critical mass and will repeat the same videos to you over and over.
EDIT: I want to overemphasize just how bad it is. It feels like a project someone whipped up in coding bootcamp over a week. It feels like it has zero ability to pick the next video correctly and it genuinely repeats videos between sessions.
I think in part because of YouTube demonization, which is how TikTok could poach the creators in the first place.
I suspect if they're mirroring content to YouTube, it's more to try to attract audience to TikTok than monetize through YouTube.
Part of it is intentional spite from the users switching; a big part of the push for banning TikTok was based on the fact that it's based on China, so purposely seeking out a Chinese alternative is making a statement. Whether or not you think the ban is justified, I think it's hard not to see the obvious inconsistency in banning only a single app on those grounds that this migration points out.
I've never personally used TikTok, so it's possible my perception is flawed, but to me it almost seems like a dare to the government to prove how serious their rationale is. If the government truly thinks that having data collected by Chinese apps is so dangerous, are they willing to flat out ban _all_ Chinese apps? If so, is that more extreme step still something the courts consider constitutional? If not, was TikTok just a convenient political target rather than something actually dangerous?
Sometimes I visit forums where people share video snippets, I've never seen sexy stuff snagged from Shorts, but a lot from TikTok.
I think both Alphabet and Meta suck at seductive material.
Because for 5-20 dollars you can drive hundreds of thousands of people if not millions of people to your video, product, meme, whatever... Youtube, not so much.
I loathe YouTube Shorts entirely.
TikTok has a great e-commerce integration, no one else is offering this at the moment.
the community on TikTok is friendlier and more uplifting compared to YouTube shorts
both shorts and reels give me so much more brain dead content than tiktok and it’s really hard to get out of that rut
Shorts is almost there. IMHO all it needed to do was be a separate app and not try to get you to sign up for YouTube Premium every 2 seconds.
Reels needs to be more disconnected from Facebook for it do anything similar.
Why do you say the Shorts UI is better? It seems exactly the same to me.
If it feels the same, you're not familiar enough with either app to make that judgement.
Is it not scrolling in either case?