1) Do you not know about livestreaming and video podcasts? YouTube will always be the best video platform for long-form content. People don't go to Tiktok for 10min+ videos - in fact the community has had a negative reaction to the news - whereas there is a massive audience on YouTube for videos that are 20min to a couple of hours long. Very shortsighted not to acknowledge that.
2) It seems your view on demonitisation is very coloured by your political beliefs. Blaire White is not just a "conservative transgender woman", she peddles actively dangerous misinformation and engages in and encourages transphobia.You call it a "censorship hellscape" yet you conversely list multiple examples of where content was not demonitised in the same sentence. The music videos you call out sent conservatives everywhere into a tizzy, so it's very clear where your political affiliations lie in this piece.
3) Bringing up data is a tired argument. Not only did you opt into sharing way more data when you started using Google or Gmail, but TikTok has long been suspected of collecting a lot more data than YouTube for potentially nefarious reasons.
4) There are very clear and simple rules around monetisation on the platform and all you have to do is abide by them. Tiktok has these same rules, but in fact has a MUCH lower ad rate for it's creators, and not everyone can even benefit from the Creator Fund.
5) Last but not least, the inability to search and find videos on TikTok is a real problem for the app's longevity. If you want to find a specific tiktok, you are more likely to find a reupload of it in a YouTube tiktok compilation than you ever are to find it on Tiktok.
To summate, I think that YouTube will always have a place on the internet. It's the first of it's kind, the largest of it's kind and it's always adapting. There is also a place for TikTok. The real fight is between Instagram and Tiktok and on that front, I think Tiktok will win in the long-term as Instagram has basically tried to become the same app but for an older age group.
However, now reading throught the other responses here, I realise this article did teach me that writing an obviously biased article on a controversial opinion will get you a lot of views on Medium, so thanks for that info, I guess!
