How TikTok Could Disrupt YouTube

It was unthinkable that ByteDance could challenge Alphabet just a few years ago, now in 2022 it's happening.

In September, 2021 TikTok it has 1 billion active global users, indicating steady growth of the short-form video app. The company reported nearly 700 million monthly active global users in the summer of 2022. With Meta’s stock crashing in 2022 and TikTok arguably the landing page of the internet, it’s Western product is ready to take on YouTube, the biggest monopoly in long-form video.

TikTok rolls out 10-minute videos, and YouTube is now a Direct Competitor

By extending the platform for long-form video, TikTok knows what it is doing, it’s going after YouTube and real value.

After testing a new max length for TikTok videos, the Chinese app just announced it’s rolling out the ability for users to upload up to 10 minutes of content in a single post. This is the first major change of the app since it adopted three minutes long videos in July, 2021.

TikTok has become so popular it’s believed it’s now a more popular mobile landing page than Google itself in 2022.

Before that, the limit was 60 seconds after initially expanding from 15 seconds. It’s clear that TikTok is leveraging its popularity to add even more value to its audience and by disrupting Instagram and now potentially YouTube, it can take a lot of Ad revenue away from legacy companies like Facebook, Google and even Snap and be one of the main ways to reach GenZ globally.

ByteDance the company that makes TikTok, understands it’s basically beaten Facebook to mobile retention in apps with a superior A.I. recommendation engine and a fresher product than Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook’s legacy app that’s now bleeding users. The next and only next frontier is taking on YouTube, which has a ridiculous monopoly in video, up until now.

While in the West children watch as much YouTube as they like, in China, Chinese version of TikTok limits kids under 14 to 40 minutes per day, adding to fight against internet addiction. China is taking a different approach to common prosperity, video game and technology regulation.

But in the West, China is using mobile addiction against it enemies. In the west it’s still the wild-wild West without major antitrust regulation or rules around the mental impact of apps or gaming. This includes misinformation, spam, fake accounts and many other things like silos that manipulate ideology. Platforms in the west simply refuse to invest enough to moderate their systems adequately.

TikTok Going After Long-Form Content Means They Know They Can Win

A spokesperson from TikTok said in a statement. “Today, we’re excited to start rolling out the ability to upload videos that are up to 10 minutes, which we hope would unleash even more creative possibilities for our creators around the world.”

This indicates ByteDance management and Beijing are confident they have enough momentum globally to take on YouTube and at least come in a respectable second, until they possibly disrupt YouTube sometime in the 2020s. This is mainly because TikTok has a younger audience base and as that scales, YouTube could become less lucrative for Creators.

The new 10 min max is a cost-benefit analysis for ByteDance and TikTok. The expanded video length will give creators more time and flexibility when filming things like cooking demos, beauty tutorials, educational content, comedic sketches and more. Prior to the new video length, creators had worked around TikTok limitations by encouraging viewers to follow them for part 2 or more of their video series. Although this works sometimes, it can be frustrating for users to have to scroll through a creator’s feed to find the right video in a series. It also creates new pain points as some users are disgruntled by longer videos that resemble YouTube videos.

Google Started a New Competition Era for Mindshare on Mobile

When Google’s YouTube started Shorts, they willingly decided to take on TikTok at their own game. And that may have been a costly mistake since now ByteDance is going after Alphabet. If Bilibili popularity in Asia is any indication, Asians and Chinese rule mobile video content, not Westerers. There are actually many new challengers to YouTube that many people in the West may not be aware of.

You could argue however that ByteDance understands its users more, empowers them more with tools and augmented reality and its creators are more sophisticated. YouTube, however, has been threatened enough about TikTok’s growth to launch its own short-form video rival directly in its own app, YouTube Shorts. However, hosting short videos isn’t TikTok’s only advantage, as it’s known for its combination of features, including its library of special effects, AR tools and music catalog.

So while YouTube has shown its trying to pivot, legacy companies like Google and Facebook aren’t very innovative since they previously had such incredible moats and duopolies in their business. While YouTube provides people a lot of value simply due to the amount of videos they have on any one subject and their incredible search, TikTok has an entertainment factor that they cannot match. On the A.I. recommendation systems, I’d say TikTok has a slight edge over YouTube’s algorithm and both are among the world leaders.

However because younger Millennials and GenZ make up a bigger cohort relative to total population, it’s hard not seeing TikTok disrupting YouTube to some extent in longer form content. TikTok is a super-app at this point for an entire generation, something even Instagram did not achieve.

Even YouTube is not the last frontier in video, it’s probably just the first.

TikTok says the option to film longer videos on the app will roll out to global users over the weeks ahead. Users will be notified when they receive the update. They’ll also need to ensure that they’re using the latest version of TikTok before trying out the feature. Ultimately Beijing will spend more on TikTok knowing that money will attract the star Creators of tomorrow to gain global mindshare for China.

Although TikTok’s meteoric rise to popularity was founded on a never-ending stream of short videos tailored to catch users’ attention, the company has been pushing longer content for a while now. As they grew to disrupt Facebook it’s clear that Google will feel their competitive pressure, like a tidal wave of younger creators that create at another level. Innovation always wins in the end. YouTube among many products of Facebook and Google were stuck in a time-warp for more than a decade, finally they are experiencing actual competition.

The advertising duopoly of Google and Facebook will be under pressure in the years ahead from better advertising segments including ByteDance, Amazon, Snap and others. While Apple’s privacy change hurt Facebook, TikTok could disrupt both Instagram and YouTube, when all is said and done. This is what I expect to occur in the 2020s.

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