[nearmuse]

People are seeing the young YouTube in TikTok. For monetization reasons, YouTube shifted to longer and better produced videos, and the quirky and raw content the OP is praising TikTok for has become less prominent, although it is definitely still there.

[roenxi]

There is an interesting argument here against the idea that YouTube, Facebook, etc are monopolies despite their impressive market share. The moment they try to extract value from their users, they have to shrink their own mote - a competitor can copy the older version of the platform that extracted less money.

They don't actually have much choice in how they run their products.

[paulryanrogers]

So if a dictator's hold on power is weak, is it not a dictatorship? Imagine there have been 2 coups over 15 years, yet both produced a winner-takes-nearly-all outcome.

Not sure it matters much if you're at the bottom and have to bow to one for a while then the other.