Comment by michaelmueller

Lack of variety in videos. 6s videos limited the amount of content that could be included to the point where all videos were essentially short comedy skits. TikTok keeps you engaged by showing you a variety of different genres of video. This includes comedy, but also educational videos, sports highlights, video game clips, etc.

Add to this TikTok's algorithm for deciding what content to show you based on how engaged you were in the previous videos and you end up with a "For you" feed that drastically varies from person-to-person. This keeps it fresh and enjoyable at all times.

Youtube tries to do a similar thing by presenting you videos that are similar to your interests, but in my experience it usually trends towards what is likely "more profitable". Meaning longer videos from well-established creators to juice as much ad revenue as possible from the user.

TikTok feels night-and-day in comparison. On TikTok, I can watch a 3 minute educational video on how elevators work, and then scroll once and see 3 second video of a grown man pretending to be a duck