Not sure if this is good. There is now a new trending app that is eating up TikTok users, its called Triller. Same concept but US made I think.
What happens if MSFT buy TikTok only for the users to migrate to the new flavour of the social media app.
What happens if MSFT buy TikTok only for the users to migrate to the new flavour of the social media app.
I expect most users will migrate eventually. TikTok had its charms because it was completely mismanaged. The discover feed had a mix between popular (>1M likes) and very unpopular (1-30 likes) videos and very odd videos, like someone slowly crushing a hornet to death inside a syringe, get popular often. Microsoft tends to have a "digital gentrification" effect on the services they take over; for example, when they bought Minecraft, they stopped adding `- removed Herobrine` to update logs. To a lot of fans it showed a lack of respect to the game and its culture. Many older players even refuse to play any Microsoft-created Minecraft versions because they changed a lot of core gameplay mechanics.
This same effect will probably hit their acquisition of TikTok. They'll make it so pro-equality posts make it to the feed more often (TikTok has a semi-4chan-ish culture around its humor rather than an "accepting" environment, though a minority of users are actually bigoted), polish the horrid UX, make good video effects rather than the very odd choices available now, and I expect they'll make it so videos can be longer (the default length is 15 seconds but you can make videos up to 60). This would ruin TikTok. The limitations imposed by TikTok's designers are crucial for fostering creativity (in my opinion, but I've made literally hundreds of videos on the platform). Without them, TikTok is just another video app.
One more thing- most TikTok users despise America. America, to the youth, is a rich bastard bully of a country with military bases across the world despite no other country having bases in America. They believe being spied on by China is preferable to being spied on by America; if you're spied on by China, what are they gonna do, try to send you propaganda? If you're spied on by America and they don't like you, they just send cops in plainclothes to your house to shoot you, and the cops don't even get charged. Even if Microsoft doesn't hurt TikTok, TikTok's further association with America alone will be enough to make users move.
Why is that a mismanagement? You said it yourself, it has its charms. (And I agree with you.) What is the goal of discover feed if not to have "its charms"? To the contrary, I think TikTok's discover feed is genius. It is very well managed, and I hope it doesn't change.