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TikTok and the Sorting Hat

eugenewei.com

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Re: TikTok and the Sorting Hat

#121

Post by mgraczyk »

> How did an app designed by two guys in Shanghai managed to run circles around U.S. video apps

Part of the explanation is that they weren't in Shanghai. The founders both worked full time at US tech companies in California when musical.ly was founded. musical.ly may have been founded while they were temporarily in Shanghai, but the founders were not some random people who didn't understand US culture.

This is important to the article's thesis. At least part of the early insight into the US market comes from the founders living and working in the US.

Re: TikTok and the Sorting Hat

#122

Post by lotsofpulp »

mistermann wrote: post #86
lotsofpulp wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How will showing people short video clips to create a drug like drip of enjoyable chemical reactions in the brain progress the species? > (and yes, one feed that contained the thirst trap photos of attractive Indian girls in rather suggestive outfits standing under things like waterfalls; some parts of culture are universal). Doesn’t sound like any version of progress that I would get excited about.

> How will showing people short video clips to create a drug like drip of enjoyable chemical reactions in the brain progress the species? Possibly (pure speculation here): if you carefully observe, at massive scale, how a system [1] behaves , it may provide some insights into how it is implemented . And based on those learnings, iteratively improve how the platform feeds tests and analyzes responses to gain deeper un…

Is there any insight to gain than the already known fact that people will sacrifice long term interests for short term gratification?

Re: TikTok and the Sorting Hat

#123

Post by mrkramer »

vkou wrote: post #119
sandworm101 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> poor/dirty people sell exotic meats While I wouldn't phrase it that way, the so-called wet markets where dozens of live animals are sold in unsanitary conditions are a problem. Western nations do have a variety of health/hygiene laws that effectively make such markets illegal. They are seen as a primitive/backwards/dangerous throwback to something rightly done away with long ago.

Western nations don't have those kinds of wet markets, but we have plenty of our own unhygienic, dangerous practices when it comes to food. Take factory farming, for example. Take the mountains of antibiotics we are shoving into factory farmed animals. Take the numerous warnings from experts in biology about how this use of antibiotics is incredibly dangerous, because it has the potential to be a breeding ground for…

Hygiene in China is like in medieval Europe, nowadays in Europe only big cities are dirty which is in the most cases result of mismanagement of mayor/s.

In Southeast Europe where I live cities are clean af. The thing that bothers me personally is absurd amount of pets on the streets in my country. When I go for a walk I see like 30 dogs.

Re: TikTok and the Sorting Hat

#124

Post by rvz »

op03 wrote: post #35
chvid wrote: post #7

TikTok really is next-generation social media. Interesting that this should come out of China and not the west. Maybe we are seeing the effect of monopolies stifling innovation.

Next gen because of what? Being more addictive?

The grandparent's comement is the exact same growth lead hype-cycle rhetoric that was said for Snapchat, Vine, Periscope, Yik-Yak and Shots. The hype is from ByteDance's VCs.

When they get their massive exit, the hype will deflate and the users will grow out of TikTok and find another rockstar social network. Rinse and repeat.

Re: TikTok and the Sorting Hat

#125

Post by eddieplan9 »

chvid wrote: post #7

TikTok really is next-generation social media. Interesting that this should come out of China and not the west. Maybe we are seeing the effect of monopolies stifling innovation.

I think the article did a really good job highlighting the power of combining a worship-level deference towards algorithm and an incredibly deep pocket. In the West, if you are an upstart, you don't have the latter - who can spend $1B on paid install in a year while seeing uninspiring retention? - and if you are big, then you cannot afford the former given the immense scrutiny from the public and the press.

Another interesting factor is that ByteDance has unfettered access to both the Chinese and the Western markets. This makes it attractive to investors who wants to bet on an upstart who can fallback to its mature Chinese business.

I personally think TikTok is still unproven outside of China if you look beyond the hype. But I also agree the big US companies are sleeping at the wheel. But if you are printing money like FB, why not?

Re: TikTok and the Sorting Hat

#126

Post by mrkramer »

jaybeeayyy wrote: post #89
quicklime wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of Chinese people (and Asians in general) being obedient to authority is something that I’ve heard frequently from people and in the news, but I didn’t mean to imply that sandworm101 made that particular argument.

You can also look at the initial blaming of COVID on China in the media...The COVID pandemic was the result of either 3rd world-like food markets where poor/dirty people sell exotic meats to each other or that COVID got out of some underground lab where they do experiments and can't contain anything. No one explicitly said that but it was implied pretty heavily especially when you look at how people received the news…

What is the origin of Covid-19? Last thing what I heard is that it is not wet market. Then Chinese blamed American soliders?! I think Wuhan Institute of Virology is the source but they will never admit the virus broke out of the institute.

Re: TikTok and the Sorting Hat

#127

Post by angel_j »

greeniron wrote: post #106
angel_j wrote: post #59

The simpler answer is TikTok paid an ample Chinese labor force to watch and heart U.S. videos. This gives the users a nice dopamine rush and brings them back. It was obvious by the number of likes and comments very dumb videos would have.

that's just plain wrong. if you even used tiktok, you'll understand how truly frighteningly powerful their algorithm is at finding exactly the kind of content you want to watch. i was never the kind of person to scroll my phone right before sleeping, but somehow i found myself doing that these days on tiktok, mindlessly just swiping up over and over again, not able to stop because almost every video seems to appeal p…

Wow I get downvoted to make room for "it's magic".

Re: TikTok and the Sorting Hat

#128

Post by angel_j »

balola wrote: post #113
angel_j wrote: post #59

The simpler answer is TikTok paid an ample Chinese labor force to watch and heart U.S. videos. This gives the users a nice dopamine rush and brings them back. It was obvious by the number of likes and comments very dumb videos would have.

Chinese who master both English language and US culture are quite rare in China.

TikTok already admitted they filtered out "poor and ugly" people. It's not hard to for a laborer to like a video and pick a (suggested) response.

Re: TikTok and the Sorting Hat

#129

Post by mistermann »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #122
mistermann wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How will showing people short video clips to create a drug like drip of enjoyable chemical reactions in the brain progress the species? Possibly (pure speculation here): if you carefully observe, at massive scale, how a system [1] behaves , it may provide some insights into how it is implemented . And based on those learnings, iteratively improve how the platform feeds tests and analyzes responses to gain deeper un…

Is there any insight to gain than the already known fact that people will sacrifice long term interests for short term gratification?

I'd bet fairly big $ that there are plenty of them.

Re: TikTok and the Sorting Hat

#130

Post by oefrha »

eddieplan9 wrote: post #125
chvid wrote: post #7

TikTok really is next-generation social media. Interesting that this should come out of China and not the west. Maybe we are seeing the effect of monopolies stifling innovation.

I think the article did a really good job highlighting the power of combining a worship-level deference towards algorithm and an incredibly deep pocket. In the West, if you are an upstart, you don't have the latter - who can spend $1B on paid install in a year while seeing uninspiring retention? - and if you are big, then you cannot afford the former given the immense scrutiny from the public and the press. Another i…

> In the West, if you are an upstart, you don't have the latter

In the East, or the North, or the South, if you acquired another company for 1B you’re certainly not an upstart. (Unless you still consider Dropbox, Airbnb, etc. upstarts.)

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