TechScape: TikTok took over social media with its uncanny algorithm – but at what cost?

In their attempts to mimic the video-sharing site’s success, Facebook, YouTube and others might have signed their own death warrants

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In the mid-2010s, social media was simple. Instagram was for your pictures, Twitter for your feelings and Facebook to see who from your past was getting engaged, married, pregnant, or divorced. This period was also one of relative bliss for tech companies: Facebook’s active users were drastically increasing quarter over quarter, and Instagram had doubled its active users in just two years. Even Twitter, which had gone through a rough patch, was regaining its footing. Like all good things, it couldn’t last.

A Pew Research Center study found that, by 2022, teenagers had all but abandoned Facebook, significantly denting its cultural cachet. Instagram had similarly disillusioned its users, and Twitter, recently bought by Elon Musk and rebranded as X, doesn’t seem to even know what its name is any more. Many apps that comfortably dominated the 2010s are meeting their reputational downfalls because they tried to compete with a new social media app – and failed. Turns out, no one – not even the US Congress – is a match for TikTok. After almost four years of tech companies vying for dominance over the app, it’s time to call it: TikTok has won.

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