Tick Tock is evil it's killing our
attention spans and
wait
what is all this
looks like we went from being able to
have a normal conversation or watching a
slow scene in a movie so now needing all
sorts of devilish tricks to keep our
attention on something vertical
scrolling feeds with Wicked smart
algorithms and short beats of content
I've invaded every corner of the
internet whether you call them shorts
reels Tick Tock I mean even Spotify now
has jumped on a train The Tick
tockification is complete and after
these companies turn what we watch into
well this now they have a huge problem
they now realize that this white
dopamine machine that they built is
broken at the core but if we look Beyond
this noise and what's happening now
there is a light at the end of the
tunnel a solution that can turn this
short form algorithmic Mass it's
something really positive not only for
the companies that make these but also
for us the users for once but to
understand it we first have to
understand the real reason why
everything became a copy of tick tock
herberg's reels where they are just the
latest in a series of features that they
just copied from others Spotify is now
making this vertical scrolling algorithm
recipe their new homepage to discover
music and podcasts and even Amazon who
doesn't really have content to show has
found a way somehow to let this Inspire
feed YouTube added shorts which recently
have been taking over more and more of
the homepage and even read it as jump on
the train because everywhere you look
the recipe is always the same take your
content make it so that it now becomes
scrollable videos make them autoplay add
a smart AI algorithm and you're done and
there's one specific reason why this
makes total sense for all these
companies and that is that they have
just too much content we went from 6
hours of videos uploaded every single
minute on YouTube in 2007 to over 500
hours a minute uploaded today every day
60 000 tracks are added to Spotify
that's 21 million tracks a year and just
think that in 2008 the entire iTunes
music store at only 8 million tracks now
let's be clear this is amazing new
creativity new points of view new ideas
people building a career in this Creator
economy but the platforms where visual
started now have a problem people's time
is limited so how do you surface all
this content to your users they've tried
having you search for things they've
tried having you click on stuff then
came trending tabs and light counters
all the way to Social and now there's
this shiny new thing on the horizon
vertical scrolling videos and smart
algorithms it seems like it's the
perfect solution not only because it's
based on videos which is one of the most
immediate and engaging types of medium
but also because it's an established
design pattern now this means that if
you show this to someone they will
automatically know what to do scroll
down double tap to like here are the
comments everybody knows how this works
it's baked into the minds of billions of
people now so if I am one of these big
companies I'm incentivized to build
something that people are already
familiar with so I don't have to
reinvent the wheel and this is why
company after company platform after
platform they all fell victim to this
tick tockification but the consequences
of this are getting darker and darker
when the first movies with sound started
to appear in the 1920s and 30s the style
of movies themselves change dramatically
from being very Visual and having to
show what was happening we now have
entire movies there are just a bunch of
people talking in rooms the medium the
way we consume something almost always
ends up having a big impact on the
content itself the information the art
and vertical style Tick Tock videos are
no exception to this because now you
need to hook people in make them watch
as much as possible of that one minute
video so people started to realize that
they can just use tricks
and they started cramming those into the
videos like those subtitles that you see
everywhere Ultra fast editing even
adding unrelated other Clips like
Minecraft all of this in pursuit of one
thing and one thing only retention or
how much are you able to keep users
watching a few months ago I watched with
my girlfriend one of my favorite movies
of all time I watch it hundreds of times
Star Wars the first one and she watched
it for the first time and she was bored
now is she allowed to be bored watching
a new movie yeah of course is she
allowed to be bored watching Star Wars
absolutely not I find your lack of faith
disturbing
Jokes Aside this movie came out in 1977.
this was a time where content
entertainment was scarce there was no
need of tricks to keep you watching no
crazy subtitles no Minecraft Gameplay
although I would have been interesting
he's heading for that small Moon
[Music]
third piece but by today's standards
it's just slow but retention now is
everyone's Obsession because it's the
one metric that the mighty algorithms
use to decide what to show and what not
to show and this is nothing new in the
past it was optimizing for the best
television slots optimizing the length
of a song for the radio this obsession
with viewer attention is a spiral
towards keeping you watching Keeping you
there keeping you scrolling keeping you
addicted watch the pretty coin of gold
so that you can see more ads and the
cycle continues so earlier today I
emerged from my last 25 minutes random
scrolling session on Tick Tock and I
think I watch pretty interesting stuff
there were some interesting videos in
there but then I thought to myself how
much do I remember about what I watched
and the answer is basically nothing and
when I look at this new wave of short
form videos even though they are able to
keep me there for long periods of time I
feel like I'm not getting anything in
return our short-term memory has been
defined by cognitive psychologists and
Lasting 15 to 30 seconds while the
average length of a tick tock video at
the end of 2021 was 24 to 31 seconds
this is also leading to all kinds of
consequences like lower attention spans
especially for children of people
growing up with this so if this is
what's happening to us the users the
company is making this should be
massively profiting now they should be
swimming in money right well the reality
is that the short form video formula is
already falling apart these feeds are a
constant stream of videos where it's
hard to focus on anything so how much do
you think a random advertisement from a
big corporate company is going to
perform in this show Mark Zuckerberg
said in a recent investor call that the
monetization efficiency of reels is much
less than feed so the more the reels
grow even though it adds to the
engagement to the system overall it
takes some time away from the feed and
we actually lose money and then right
after that they took away the reels
Creator fund the way they were paying
creators making reels on Instagram and
meanwhile while we look at tiktok who's
been incredibly successful and has been
growing so much it's still losing money
while YouTube makes money from those 5
to 15 second ads that companies use to
do brand building this is simply not
possible on Tick Tock now even if Tick
Tock loses money this is not a big deal
they are controlled by a big company by
then so it's not a big problem but it's
clear that today the short form video
formula is not even working for the
companies that made it in the first
place and this is also showing on the
other side the side of the people making
held the content the creators while
Instagram is just same kit and removing
the whole Creator funnel together tick
tock's Creator fund has been heavily
criticized for giving incredibly low
payouts even if you get millions of
views because it's a fixed amount and
everybody's just scrambling to get a
piece of a fixed pie and if you look at
Tick Tock reels or even YouTube shorts
many creators that started with these
platforms now realize that they cannot
build long-term and sustainable business
on these platforms so they're always
looking to move to long-form content
whether it's YouTube videos or a podcast
or any other ways where they can build a
more solid business
so in the end this whole system is bad
for everyone it's bad for the companies
that made it it's bad for the creators
and it's bad for the users that fall
into this black hole of scrolling and it
turns out that there is a solution to
this but to get to it we need to look at
the complete opposite direction while
this tsunami of short form videos has
been taking the spotlight and wiping
everything in its direction something
else has been happening behind the
scenes and no one's really talking about
it because long form content had a
Renaissance in this new world of super
fast media people who didn't want to
play the game said it and just
double down on the entire opposite
direction podcasts are making the
biggest examples with some of the most
successful ones worldwide like the
flagrant podcast or Joe Rogan topping
even three or four hour conversations
the podcasting Market went from 4
billion dollars in 2020 to 18 billion
dollars in 2022 with no signs of
stopping then came newsletters and
long-form written content often that you
pay for with substack leading the pack
and gathering over 500 000 paying
subscribers for their newsletter content
and on YouTube with the introduction of
shorts the normal videos have been
getting longer and longer so if people
are getting brainwashed by these Tick
Tock style dopamine hits short attention
span Extravaganza why are we seeing an
explosion of three hour podcasts and 40
minute YouTube videos even movies are
going in a completely counter-intuitive
Direction in 2021 the average length of
the top 10 highest grossing movies was
131 minutes well back in 1981 it was
just 110 minutes people are getting
addicted to that fast dopamine heat type
of content yes but they are more than
willing to spend 30 minutes watching a
YouTube documentary if they are able to
find the right one and this this is the
solution The Missing Link
so let's look at what we have here on
one side we have Tick Tock Instagram
reels shorts whatever you want to call
them they have cracked the code on how
to bring Discovery to a huge library of
contents to billions of people but at
the same time they have created a
massively addictive machine of
short-term dopamine hits it's an
incredible tool to discover new stuff
but that's the only thing you can do you
cannot go deep into anything and on top
of that the companies that make this are
starting to show the first cracks
because they're not able to monetize as
well as they expected and as soon as a
Creator gets some success well the first
thing they want to do is move somewhere
else where they can build a real
business and on the other side it's
clear that people still want to spend
three hours enjoying a conversation or a
very deep movie and this is
extraordinary but this side has a
problem it lacks a way for people to
find this interesting stuff have you
ever tried searching for a podcast
episode on a specific topic it's an
atrocious experience and so I mean
are you getting it
this is the solution what can finally
give some sense to the scrolling machine
allow creators to finally Thrive and
giving interesting long-form content the
discovery engine that it really needs
and in the meantime as always the
companies will make billions of dollars
so now these companies have billions of
dollars tens of thousands of Engineers
um but thousands of Engineers designers
and product managers but there are three
things that they need to nail in order
to make this work the first one is of
course the link short form content and
long-form content in a seamless way but
that keeps them still separate this
vertical scrolling Carnival is not the
right way to watch a 30 minute
documentary and at the same time you
wouldn't watch a series of 10 second
Clips on normal YouTube and in practice
there's many ways to do this for example
one can be to show the long form content
at the end of a short like in this
random design that I made and just a
product manager guy making videos on
YouTube so I leave this to them to
figure it out but what they absolutely
need to make this work is number two
which is changing what the algorithm
optimizes for currently these platforms
optimized for the retention of a single
video how much people watch that single
short or whatever but to make this
Missing Link work they need to change
the algorithm to make sure it optimizes
for the overall retention so for the
show short content all the way to the
long form content this way you will push
on the platform people that are yes able
to hook people in with the flashy stuff
but that then are able to make people
keep watching long form and deeper
content because this is the only place
where platforms can really monetize with
ads and this brings us to points number
three which is creating a platform where
creators can build the real businesses
if you do this properly these companies
will be able to make tons of cash and
it's important that they give something
back to the creators because this is
what fills the machine in the long run
and actually companies are starting to
make the first baby steps toward this
the new tick tock like homepage of
Spotify has been received not in the
best way for music but I think it's
amazing for podcasts on the other side
Tick Tock has increased the maximum
length of a video from 15 seconds to 1
minute and now to 10 minutes and one of
the requirements for a video to be
eligible to be monetized for their new
Creator fund is that the video is at
least one minute long so it's clear that
they are starting to go into the longer
video territory but the problem here is
still that with the scrolling Behavior
they have instilled in their app people
on Tick Tock are just primed to swipe
away this is not the right place to show
these longer videos I really hope this
is the way we get out of the Mindless
Doom scrolling without any purpose
but I may be wrong here maybe yes
everything will collapse into one minute
videos and so you will maybe not end up
watching this next video which by the
way you should