As an AI-focused human, I'm pretty skeptical of the idea that ByteDance' AI made the difference here - not because I dispute that AI can pierce cultural boundaries, but because doing so is a purchasable commodity for a scaled social platform. The magic sauce here was getting the flywheel turning to have users invent content templates native to the medium. Ad dollars, as you mention, and some smart decisions about biases (maybe, as another commenter says, the creative positivity that survives CN censorship).