Today’s links Why Millennials aren’t leaving Tiktok: It’s the same reason that Boomers can’t leave Facebook. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2009, 2014, 2019 Upcoming appearances: Where to find me. Recent appearances: Podcasts, events and more. Latest books: You keep readin’ em, I’ll keep writin’ ’em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I’ll keep writin’ ’em. Colophon: All the rest. Why Millennials aren’t leaving Tiktok (permalink) The news that Gen Z users have abandoned Tiktok in such numbers that the median Tiktoker is a Millennial (or someone even older) prompted commentators to dunk on Tiktok as uncool by dint of having lost its youthful sheen: https://www.garbageday.email/p/tiktok-millennials-turns But “why are Gen Z kids leaving Tiktok?” is the wrong question. The right question is, why aren’t Millennials leaving Tiktok? After all, we are living through the enshittocene, the great enshittening, in which every platform gets monotonically, irreversibly worse over time, and Tiktok is no exception: https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys To understand why older users are stuck to Tiktok, we need to start with why younger users relentlessly seek out new platforms. To some extent, it’s just down to youth’s appetite for novelty, but that’s only part of the story. To really understand why people come to – and leave – platforms, you have to understand switching costs. “Switching costs” is the economists’ term for everything you have to give up when you change products or services. Switching from Ios to Android probably means giving up a bunch of your apps…Pluralistic: Why Millenials aren't leaving Tiktok (21 Mar 2024)