Tiktok didn't dominate by appealing to niche tech power users.
Re:The next Google
by ravi-delia on Tuesday April 05, 2022 @02:14PM
(#30922734)
Tiktok optimizes for momentary engagement and fast-paced social content. It turns out that's a niche that people want filled, and the rapid bouncing of ideas between users has created some very fun content which sometimes escapes containment so I can watch it. But not everything is going for the same goal, and honestly I wouldn't be surprised if more than a few players could really get in on that space. For other use cases, customization may well win out over a totally frictionless experience. A search engine is a tool, and benefits from more options much more than Tiktok does.
TikTok's purpose and use-case is completely different from that of a search engine.
Tech power users are still a niche in virtually every use case except maybe HN
Tech power users (and power users in general I would say) might have more money to throw at the problem. "Nicheness" isn't necessarily a bad thing if your niche is profitable. I heard somewhere that power-grid-scale transformers are have insanely long lead times so the industry most be pretty niche (when's the last time you needed one of those?) and yet I think we can all agree that the equipment is valuable and I bet those manufacturers are making bank.
This is the thing. I'm the power user in my circle. People comes to me for suggestions about pretty much anything involving tech. Sometimes just because they see me with different stuff.
So if I'm not the average user I may look for other options, as other people like me may do. If I find such options reasonable for the average user, that will be my recommendation to them.