Tiktok vs Billionaire Platform Rot

How the Tiktok battle revealed our Codependence Economy,™ plus who & what it's built on.

This is why we can’t have nice things:*

*unless we’re willing to work or change a tiny bit for them and maybe even work together ¹

Tiktok drama, Meta drama and a holiday shopping hangover made me realize just how inured we have become to the unforgivable decline in the platforms that run a lot of American lives. Particularly American marketers.

My unlock? Seeing what Tiktok was all along.

Last Monday, Ryan Broderick of Garbage Day published a piece that laid this out:

Tiktok is an e-commerce platform. It was never about content.

And therefore, it would/will not sell to stay in the US.

For me, the reframes here included:

(1) The American audience is fungible or at least not essential to Tiktok’s success. Sure, we’re big. But India’s bigger. China’s bigger.

Owie. As a consumer market used to being courted as the world’s Prom Queen, that’s a shocker. But one we’ll have to get used to. After all, the US is also far from Instagram’s biggest market now.²

Go On, Take Everything - Hole’s 1994 album shot of Live through this

(2) Tiktok’s game was never about content, because the platform and model are focused on an e-commerce, not content-driven ads. To quote Broderick, “The content is filler.”

Well, that explained the experience of looking up a brand on Tiktok and getting Bermuda Triangled into its product feed. Annoying but effective. It’s a product feed that’s more direct and navigable than most Shopify sites or DTC brands, and way faster than what Amazon has devolved into.

Surprisingly obvious, but mind blown.

Tiktok is not just optimized for novelty, it’s highly optimized to sell product. A lot of it. And it is just starting to hit its stride:

Tiktok had:

• The majority of social shopping in the US in 2024, well over 60%

• Estimated $17.5 billion in US sales in 2024.

• Exponential growth with nearly 12M US shoppers on the platform and growing.

• Top-selling categories: beauty and personal care, womenswear, food and beverages, home supplies, and fashion accessories.

Oh those female shoppers. 💅

You Get What You Get & You Don’t Throw a Fit

The timing all made so much sense. Bezos and Zuckerberg change vibes and suddenly, the biggest disrupter of both of their platforms does, after all, get disappeared.

Well, almost. We’ll see.

Zuckerberg’s platforms are losing US engagement.

Flop Era Meet Slop Era

With Meta taking down what little content standards it had and going full X, the feeds will only get worse—Tiktok or no Tiktok. Have you been on X lately?

As of fall 2024, X’s revenue reportedly dropped by 84% since Musk bought it.

-84%.

Even if the Meta platforms don’t fall further, the current experience is not great. It hasn’t been for a while. We’re just used to it.

Over half of Gen Z bought holiday gifts on Tiktok in 2025. Over a third shop Tiktok regularly and Millennials and older generations have been following suit.

With Meta’s US engagement already falling and younger folk shopping more and more on Tiktok, you can see why America’s Billionaires would be concerned.

And as every American knows, it’s easiest to buy something to make a problem go away (say, an inauguration party?) , instead of putting in the work to address the problem’s root cause (say, a platform losing relevance and usability).

It looked like Zuck and Bezos would pull it off.

A Co-Dependence Economy™

Addictions are never healthy. They feel bad far more than good, yet we keep going back, despite known harm.

The following take on codependent relationships really hits when I think of how most people would describe the enshittification of Meta and Amazon:

“Initially, co-dependent relationships can be amazing. I am needed, I feel loved, they want me! And it feels familiar.” Over time, though, this dynamic breeds resentment because they never feel like they can ask for, and never receive, the things they want and need.”

Also: codependents and narcissists are drawn to each other. I’ll leave that there.

These platforms were once novel, high reward, all about discovery and connection. Now, not. The quality of the Meta and Amazon experiences have been in decline for a while. A long while.

And speaking as someone who tried to run social shopping for a while: Sure, the IG shop was painful to set up, never really worked and Meta’s ad platform was randomly punitive and impossible to get support for. But, then, Amazon isn’t the kindest to small companies either, be it resellers or delisting or fees.

We were used to it. We accepted it. We got what we got. Where else would we go?

IG and FB are based on the old broadcast model.

Meta’s e-commerce isn’t great because it wasn’t built for it, it was bolted on.

Despite the algos and the analytics, it’s an old-fashioned , ad-sponsored content model. Like radio. Like newspapers or TV. The creation cycle was just different.

It feels old.

Why would advertisers or users want to spend more here unless they had fewer options?

I rarely open IG nor miss it, because my feed has devolved into an irritating version of a mid women’s magazine. Predictable. Oily, touched out and out-of-date, like an ancient US Weekly I’d flip through during a pedicure.

Packed with formulaic ads for things I’ll never buy because I’ve worked in many categories and know too much. Accounts I’ve never followed and don’t want to, pushing junk I don’t actually care about.

You could argue, I trained my algorithm for that. At one point, yes.

For years, I’ve opened IG for work. The artists, writers, fringe influencers and smart business feeds I followed were buried long ago, so of course I don’t engage with them. The algo forgot them.

The algo also trained creators, people and marketers to copy each other. So I’m just buried in White Ladyland.

IG is the conversations I run from at acquaintance’s social events.

FB is what? It’s hard to imagine products beyond reverse mortgages that really make money here. The vibe is old man yelling at chair + AI meme slop + a Valu-Pack that moves:

FB is what I’d toss in the recycling as soon as I walk in the door.

Amazon? Too many issues to enumerate. While we’ve been convinced of its convenience, junky “brands” and knockoffs clog search results and inflate ad costs.

Sure, they are logistics wizards but as a shopping experience, it’s now:

I’d argue the devolution of Amazon really just primed people to be OK with³ Temu and Shein, because I can’t imagine why you’d buy anything from either platform otherwise.⁴

Tiktok: Pointless Intermittent Rewards Win

As Garbage Day pointed out: Pointless content is the means to an end on Tiktok. And no one does brain rot better than FYP.

The trend cycles are ridiculously fast. This is not only brain rot but a smart strategy to keep people logging on.

It’s the slot machine’s law of intermittent rewards: You never know what’s coming or when gold will strike. Keep the dopamine chase going. And since it’s mostly relatable, quirky and random, it feels fairly “real” to a parasocial generation in an increasingly parasocial society.

“But it’s not really social! People don’t follow people they know!” some say. Again, isn’t that the strength?

Seeing actual people you know humblebragging on Meta feels bad. This has been quantified in numerous studies. Maybe the anonymity of Tiktok feels a little better.

Tiktok’s slot machine model punctuated with “real person” product reviews is probably more motivating to click buy than rage and depression content couched with formulaic or screeching ads.

Of course all of these platforms do damage, but the question is always: Where are the ad dollars most efficient! 🇺🇸

🐍 New Chinese curse: May You Live in Slot Machine times! 🎰

But will people log off?

Average Americans: Eh.

Checking into my own IG and FB feeds, many (supposedly liberal) people were throwing up their hands after Meta’s policy changes. “But..but… but….. where else would we go? What would we do? How would I keep up with friends?”

It doesn’t take a mental health influencer with good memes to identify classic codependent behavior.

Text? Phone? Email? Get togethers? Parties? Hobbies? Hello, fellow Analog Natives! In the world we grew up in and recently inhabited, if you had no reason to keep tabs on a person, you amicably and pleasantly faded from each other’s consciousness. Their interest in Jesus memes or pool floaties did not affect your limited time on earth, let alone the ads you saw. Nor did you pollute theirs. Sweet freedom.

Last week, my Wile co-founder put a “I cancelled Amazon Prime” post up on Linkedin and the comment section was pretty delicious.

There was some of this:

This guy tells us why:

Truth hurts.

Gen Z has a different reality. Maybe?

Tiktok is/was/is⁵ the #1 platform for Gen Z, who spends 25% of their day and half their waking hours consuming content.

A near majority of Gen Z and alpha want to be influencers. So seeing the US government yank a main entertainment platform as well as a livelihood has to be jarring, if not enraging.

Gen Z isn’t quiet about hypocrisy, even though they seem to fully expect it. Seeing politicians and pundits rally around the Tiktok ban but not on health care, drug prices, war or education was called out much more loudly and clearly by them compared to the “but what would we dooooo?” of their elders.

And it was a harsh reminder to creators: Platforms own you, your content and your data, not the other way around.

Because the current era could be called “Strange Bedfellows,” Barstool’s Dave Portnoy came down on this Friday with the govt “don’t give a f—k about you.”

This is the confusing part of the current political influencer era.

Who is Joe Average supposed to believe? Musk? Trump? Barstool? Zuckerberg? Rogan? Some other super rich guy who, in reality, would have nothing to do with them but… but…. but… now likes MMA?

Will Gen Z just push all of its viewing back to IG? Unlikely.

As Tiktok briefly went dark, the backlash came squarely for a Mark Zuckerberg post of his surfing exploits. Angry Tiktokers flooded his comments.

But… but… but…

In the future, everyone will be a scapegoat for 15 minutes.

Many, as an act of protest/desperation, had already been downloading a Chinese app Little Red Book aka Xiaohongshu aka Red Note. Partially as an middle finger to the Man and not indicating a mad rush back to IG.

Gen Z has limited to no outrage about data privacy, in fact:

We have been well aware of Russian interference in Meta’s platforms. We were long aware Tiktok had vastly different experiences for Chinese kids than America’s. Portnoy says he’s more worried about American political disinformation.

Plus: our data can be purchased on the open market.

But it’s not and never really has been about data privacy or fraying mental health or societal health or foreign interference or personal or national security.

Most recently, it’s been about billionaires reclaiming market share without having to improve their product.

Social media usage was already predicted to drop.

Just in time for January “new year, new you,” this (potential?) push off the Tiktok cliff could have another little blowback: Making people question how or why they are on social at all.

The think pieces were already rolling in about how much social actually sucks. From Anne Helen Peterson to Cal Newport to Jon Haidt to a bunch of thinking women’s Substacks like Virginia Sole Smith.

I love the optimism of this piece: Is the Tiktok ban a chance to rethink the whole internet?

But.. will we?

We are a co-dependent nation.

X’s revenue tanked 84% but its usage only declined by 5%. Which, net, just makes it a much, much worse business. Problematic unless you’re a vanity owner who wants to use it to as an personal soapbox and playground.

Enter the Conquering Hero. Maybe?

China made the app unavailable a few hours before midnight. Nice flex before they were ordered to do so.

But wait! Trump just announced a emergency order to reinstate it—but demanding partial government ownership. Big swing.

And Tiktok turned back on!

Oh so much of that masculine energy we’ve been told business needs.

Everyone else looks like a toadie, bad guy, clueless old man or all of the above. Beta.

Co-dependent dynamics ride again.⁶ But how long does the promise last? Ask the slot machine.

Everyone is talking about how Tiktok just gave Trump the biggest ad ever. But really, Tiktok got the real win. FOMO engagement and downloads will likely explode.

Finally - Just an hour before, I saw online rumors that Musk was going to buy Tiktok. That Meta would buy it.

Only in America do we always assume everything is for sale. For the terms offered.

Let me ask you:

The real flex would all of us cutting way back on —not even totally divesting from—these tired griege platforms. Plenty of companies deliver quickly. Most scrolling is actually boring, irrelevant, enraging or both.

Are we un-rotted enough to do it? What would it take?

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This just in:

Taylor Swift has increased the Chief’s Fan Base by 40%

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LIVIN’ IN DUPE DAYS

Wal-Mart is selling vintage Birkins. And knockoff “Wirkins” but they are selling too fast to get your hands on.

Parents are jacking up their kids’ credit scores.

Nostalgia is your brain lying to you - the past wasn’t that great.

Remember, a dupe used to be a lie as well as a copycat. Both things can be true, but they don’t have to be.

1. Mostly, we’re not willing.

2. That’d be India.

3. “OK with” kind of feels like the American experience right now for many

4. I admit I bought one Halloween decoration for my son this year from Temu that was unfindable elsewehere. I apologized to the Earth when I opened it. Worse than trash.

5. As I type this it got reinstated. Oh those slot machine moments!

6. Lots of dysfunctional boyfriend/Daddy/horrible boss energy. Again: Co-Dependence!