[jianshen]

According to their "algorithm", they show everyone's videos randomly to a small set of people and if people watch all of it (as in don't immediately swipe up), share or comment quickly then they show it to more people implying that the content I made is actually interesting to people. TikTok obv wants to surface good viral content to as many people as possible so the incentives are aligned. Think of it as being able to automate AB testing across hundreds of thousands of pieces of content.

As a result, I don't think traffic was given to me for absolutely no reason but there is a component of luck that they are explicit about which makes it even more compelling to creators. Compared to FB/IG/YouTube where I have to pay influencers or ad networks to get my work seen, they've evened the playing field a bit if my content has enough "inertia". It just motivates me to create better content next time and to try more often. You see how they're getting creators addicted?