I noticed a similar narrative and noticed it even first hand on some accounts I am following on Instagram which only recently started moving to TikTok. The growth is insane. Comedians with something like 10k followers on Instagram getting 1-2m views on their TikToks in their first few vids. But they are fully adjusting to the TikTok format and dynamic.
On instagram I am increasingly seeing ads for popular sports and music stars - which I would suspect could be triggered by unsatisfying reach or growth for them and Instagram cutting down even more on free exposure.
If TikTok can sustain a mechanism that boosts new creators it will be golden for a long time. Organic growth seems to be dead for Instagram and YouTube unless someone puts in 10x the effort than for TikTok.
They constantly tweak the bias of what is shown on these platforms to keep engagement high. By the minute we talk about a trend online, the bias has already changed to a new focus. All of these sites are driven by manipulating users into compliance and over-investment of time and money. That is how they make ad revenue to pay overhead, and create product dependency.
The problem is that there are so many people addicted to the possibility of being a popular influencer that no one is being honest about how little real success and money they make on these platforms... In truth it may be a possibility that most users are completely faking social media success.
On instagram I am increasingly seeing ads for popular sports and music stars - which I would suspect could be triggered by unsatisfying reach or growth for them and Instagram cutting down even more on free exposure.
If TikTok can sustain a mechanism that boosts new creators it will be golden for a long time. Organic growth seems to be dead for Instagram and YouTube unless someone puts in 10x the effort than for TikTok.