I've yet to hear very many stories of TikTok randomly and capriciously demonetizing videos as one often hears of YouTube doing, so there is that?

TikTok doesn't need to demonetize videos. They just adjust their algorithm to never show it again and it's effectively the same thing.

Does that prevent users from seeing a video from someone they follow?

I haven't used tiktok in a month, but right before I left lots of creators were complaining that their videos weren't getting as much views anymore, specially some that mentioned political stuff and the obvious thirst traps.

That essentially becomes their demonetization strategy, if you say things tiktok/ad sellers don't like, you stop being recommended. Youtube on the other hand at least separates their monetization from their recommendation system.

Do they have that? I’ve seen that TikTok just shallow-ban that kind of videos.

You mean shadow ban?

Ohh sorry, yes I mean a shadow ban

That's great if you already have an audience but I think TikTok model might be better to keep the wheels turning in the long term as it encourages users to try their luck on content creation as the chances of something hitting viral level there is bigger.

The model of feeds adopted by YouTube and Instagram has a lot of first mover advantages which makes succeeding as a newcomer really hard. It's really hard to find successful creators in the past few years that hit success without recurring to paid promotion or sponsorship from other more successful creators.