The article goes into this - for people just jumping into the comments:

The author states that while western algorithms are based on your follow graph (e.g. Instagram is relatively useless until you follow someone and even then your feed is based on your follower graph, like what people you follow like), TikTok builds this data on video features. This increases TikTok's stickyness because you don't need to do anything other than use the app for it adjust to your tastes. There's no need to "import" your contacts or suggest people you should follow, it just "knows" after you watch a couple videos.

YouTube mastered this years ago and that's why it is 3rd most visited website in the world and 2nd most used search engine in the world.

I see TikTok as a better version of Vine but I still can't understand if TikTok is so much popular and so much worth why did Twitter shut down Vine? Twitter is like modern MySpace it will fail sooner or later if management doesn't get replaced and if they don't start thinking long term.

I don't know about you, but my YouTube recommendations tend to be pretty useless. I can't remember the last time autoplay found me genuinely compelling content that wasn't already in my subscribed channels.

Youtube has been doing this for years. Clear your cookies then start watching youtube videos. Youtube will immediately begin tuning video suggestions to what you watch, no contact importing or channel subscribing necessary.

Spotify too.

I'll never forget putting one song into Spotify and having it recap my late 90's listening habits over the course of an evening.

That sounds just like YouTube and how I presumed Vine worked though? E.g. that the majority of users don't set up any follow graph, and that most content users view is algorithmically-discovered and not like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram where most of the content is based on an explicit graph?

Sounds like the algo's that the porn companies have started movie to. Stickyness works.

Try downloading it and just play with it for a bit without signing up.

Compare that with Instagram.

Well on desktop and even on mobile you can't browse Instagram freely without signing up or singing in, it is kinda double edge sword which forces you to join or backs you off.