As millennials flood the app, TikTok is about to mature into a YouTube-like juggernaut — if it can survive the US ban.
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The Lede
Older people, and their judgments, are flooding TikTok. But just because TikTok's user base is becoming older doesn't mean that it's "over" for the app. Instead, experts and users I spoke with suggested that the platform may simply be moving into a new, more mainstream phase of existence.
Key Details
- Contrary to TikTok's reputation as a "Gen Z app," people in their 30s and 40s comprised nearly 40% of surveyed users. What's more, this cohort of largely millennials was growing faster than the platform's 18-to-34 cohort.
- Social-media platforms don't just die because their users get older. They go through "enshittification."
- It describes the process whereby platforms initially attract people by making their tools as useful as possible, only to degrade the user experience to turn a profit for shareholders.
