> I care about the future, I don't care much for reading other people's Magic 8 Balls.

Sorry but that assertion makes no sense at all. Caring about the future does not mean naive wishful thinking.

Caring about the future means analysing the likely outcomes and act so that the best ones are the most likely outcomes and the worst ones are least likely.

TikTok has a very clear and obvious attack surface. This attack surface has been known to be exploited in a certain way. Intentionally turning a blind eye to the clear and real threat it poses is the exact opposite of caring about the future because you are thus actively engaged in enabling the worst possible outcome to become a reality.

You do not make problems go away by pretending they don't exist.

However, you can make problems appear by pretending they do exist.

Can we perhaps agree that there is a possibility for things to go bad in the future (in regards to data collection and privacy), but that today we have no concrete evidence of it?

We can, but what value is there in making that statement?

Things always can go bad, and, often, do go bad. That's almost vacuously true.

What would one expect to come out of saying that, other than the feeling of smug satisfaction at some point in the future?

> Things always can go bad, and, often, do go bad. That's almost vacuously true.

> What would one expect to come out of saying that, other than the feeling of smug satisfaction at some point in the future?

Why, take action to ensure things won't go bad?

Is that concept hard to understand? That preparation is the key?

I mean, why do people waste their time going out of their way to go to a crosswalk and wait for the light to go green to cross a street? They can simply jaywalk their way through life without bothering with hypothetical traffic accidents. But what value is there in doing that? People can get run over and often do get run over. That's almost vacuously true. What would one expect to come out of saying that people should cross the street in crosswalks other than the feeling of smug satisfaction at some point in the future when a jaywalking fool gets ran over but they don't as a result of thinking things through and avoiding obvious problems?

Under that same logic nothing that could potentially ever go badly should ever be discussed as it can always happen and thus there is no value in discussing it?

Not all of us think along the same lines.

Some might like to believe that things are perfectly fine and there is no harm in participating.

Some might realize the potential for harm, but simply not care about the outcome.

Others have a different opinion, one of caution and not participating in case things do go bad.

It has nothing to do with feelings of 'smug satisfaction'.

I do truly hope that you aren't surrounded by people for whom it would for these kinds of discussions.

A discussion about how TikTok can go bad, and what we can do about it would be valuable. And for that discussion, we'd need to understand what makes TikTok so good that it's taken the #1 spot.

Saying "TikTok bad, don't use it" is the opposite of having a discussion.

Before making this comment, did you acknowledge the possibility that it could go bad in the future?

Ofc. To me the potential for issues is obvious.