No, You Don't Need to Build a TikTok Clone

I understand why some people think they need to, but let's analyze the short-form trap

Alas, as the old saying goes, what is old will someday be positioned as brand new under the odd assumption that one will be the wiser. For example, a guest column in The Hollywood Reporter this week posited that legacy media companies were going to lose basically everything if they didn’t enter the short term video world by hosting their own vertical feeds. 

Jeffrey Katzenberg, you were simply too early seems like the underlying message. 

It’s also a total misread on the short form space. I mean no disrespect to strategist Paul Pastor, who does make some good points in his column, but this continued idea that companies with streaming services should build in short-form video vertical feeds as a destination for audiences spending more time on apps like TikTok and Instagram ignores all glaring evidence as to why that won’t work. Here’s part of what Pastor, a Hollywood executive and strategist, wrote: 

From a content point of view, rights holders should leverage their existing catalog, and couple it with a proper short form video windowing strategy, as a first step into a short form video journey. Leveraging AI tools, trained on various use cases like sports and video on-demand content, can help accelerate their time-to-market and increase the velocity of publishing through tools that identify key moments, cut, verticalize and publish short form content derived from live, freshly premiering, and archival content. 

There’s a lot to dissect here. It’s easy to see why Pastor is making those points. As he correctly notes, “Simply syndicating content, or placing ads on these platforms, while a necessary strategy, only further strengthens the position of YouTube and TikTok in reinforcing the network effect of these platforms, building an expanding moat for them while surrendering what will likely prove to be the next big media opportunity.” I agree. So why am I pushing back against the overall message? Here’s why trying to turn short-form habits into an activity that streamers can further own is extremely challenging, if not downright impossible. 

• Leveraging catalog to create a short form windowing strategy. Scenes from catalog programming work in sporadic spurts, placed in-between totally irrelevant but addicting UGC. People opening a short form video app don’t want wall-to-wall scenes from old shows and movies, they want those intermingled with cats falling, children laughing, and get ready with me videos.

• Increasing the velocity of publishing by identifying key moments. Those key moments are sought out, which is based on a totally different intended experience than a short-form app built to service the “I don’t know what I want” boredom triggers in our brains. Trying to bring audiences into an app to find a clip within a short form video vertical that doesn’t have strong search query technology isn’t going to draw users in. Not to mention this need is already met on real-time UGC apps like X or BlueSky. 

• Short form content derived from live, freshly premiering, archival content. To do this effectively would require utterly transforming the definition of a streaming service to better compete with user generated content platforms that spend billions of dollars on addictive forming technologies because they don’t have to spend on content. 

Pastor doesn’t even get to the most important “but” —  in order for streaming services to create a short form video product that incentivizes daily, intentional, continuous use would require opening the door to user generated content. That is both a liability and a product area most studios are not going to want to approach. It takes one look at the headaches companies like Meta, Snapchat, YouTube, and TikTok face for executives at companies focused on controlled storytelling environments to simply say “not for me.” Netflix may want a mini-series about Joe Rogan, and hell they may even want the Joe Rogan Experience on their app, but they probably don’t want to have thousands of react videos about Joe Rogan clogging up someone’s feed. It’s just not a part of the value equation. 

Look, picking apart a column doesn’t do any good. But I do think Pastor’s column opens the door to one of the most important conversations we need to have right now: when do you lean into a new technology driven behavior, and when do you push back against the wind? 

Not Everything to Everyone 

There is a sizable misconception that in order for media companies of today to survive in the media world of tomorrow they must be everything to everyone. The New York Times is a game and a cooking app as well as a seller of news. Netflix is a gaming machine as well as a TV network. Amazon is a bookseller that’s also a movie studio and podcast distributor. The takeaway everyone seems to make is you can’t just be one thing; you must be everything to everyone. Therefore, those trends demand that longform media try and break into  short form. Here are just a few quick third-party data  highlights reiterating that perceived truth: 

• 91% of people on Instagram watch videos weekly, with nearly 45% of users preferring Stories (Sprout Social)

• YouTube Shorts has more than 177 million monthly users, and is projected to surpass 210 million by 2028 (eMarketer) 

• Nearly 65% of teens in the United States use TikTok (Pew Research) 

• The top four apps uses by teens in the United States are short form oriented or boast short form video products (Pew Research) 

• The number one activity that GenZ seeks out on social media is short form content (62%, eMarketer) 

• Perhaps most importantly to more traditional media companies, the most significant amount of time spent with video amongst GenZ is short form video and gaming (42%), vs the most significant amount of time spent for those between the ages of 34 and 50 is TV (40%). (Hub Research)

You can see why many of these strategists and consultants have approached short form video verticals as a new destination spot within their own platforms. The problem, and not to overly state the obvious, is making this strategy work is remarkably difficult when you add in the cost of integrating user generated content and building powerful algorithmic feeds. The only thing more important than what those third party data points tell us is what it doesn’t tell us. 

Why do people seek out short form content instead of long form content, and what do they want from those two experiences? Just because short form video exists doesn’t negate the importance and continued value of long form content. Short form content provides random distraction; long form content provides intentional escapism. To try and bring either of those experiences to an app that is identified in a user’s mind as one thing faces problems in attempts to change overall behaviors. 

Two clear examples come to mind: YouTube Red and Netflix’s Fast Laughs. YouTube Red, which eventually became YouTube Premium, started as a way to bring more original series into YouTube. The Global Originals program was run by former MTV head Suzanne Daniels and, as the title implied, YouTube Red tried original, heavily produced series with YouTube talent like Liza Koshy and Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg. The team also tried more traditional scripted television, with some titles based on pre-established IP, like Karate Kid. None of these series really worked. These videos were also locked behind a paywall that promised heavy YouTube users a couple of premium experiences, including removing ads (that’s the big one) and scripted content. Unsurprisingly, nearly 90% of YouTube users in 2015 and 2016 were unwilling to pay for additional content, even if it came from their favorite creators or Hollywood actors, according to a 2016 Omidia study. 

Put another way: the type of thoroughly produced fare audiences got out of Netflix and Prime Video (at the time) wasn’t something they needed on YouTube. By 2018, then YouTube C.E.O., Susan Wojciki, declared YouTube Red a music service that audiences loved for their ability to download music unavailable elsewhere for offline listening and the ad-free experience.

What started as an effort to spruce up YouTube’s content ended up becoming a successful business by leaning into exactly what YouTube was always meant to be — a place to watch videos for free —  and giving power users the ability to consume even more user generated content without those pesky ads. Payment for a better expected experience, not upgrading to an unnecessary and unwanted one. The cherry on top of this example? YouTube Red’s Karate Kid show, Cobra Kai, eventually got sold to Netflix…where it became one of the platform’s highest performing titles. It wasn’t that the show was bad; it was that people on YouTube didn’t want the type of content they could get on Netflix. Intention is just as important as attention. 

We can see the same effect when looking at Netflix’s Fast Laughs. In an effort to capitalize on precisely the idea that Pastor argues in his Reporter column, Netflix launched a vertical feed full of scenes from comedy shows, movies, and stand-up specials that people could scroll through. Unlike a distraction app like Instagram or TikTok, the idea was seemingly designed as a discovery feed to help members find the next title to watch. Not a bad idea! Netflix even expanded Fast Laughs to TV sets, implying there may have been some kind of successful adoption in the product. 

Except it wasn’t successful. Netflix wound up discontinuing the product, according to a Los Angeles Times report in 2023. It was Daniels herself, the former head of YouTube Red, and one of the few people with true expertise working across user generated content platforms and premium content, who pointed out that audiences know what kind of experiences they want from different value apps. “I still don’t believe short-form content is the type of content that would engage you as a subscriber. With subscription, you want to feel like you’re getting premium content, star-driven content — and short-form is something that you feel like you can do yourself.”

As Daniels basically points out, if people want short form video, they have apps they can open. If they want longer form or more premium content, they also have apps they can open. Despite significant evidence showing that audiences will ping back and forth between six and 10 apps a day, there is no evidence that audiences would stay on one app more if there were a combination of premium and UGC content. The closest we have is YouTube with Shorts and longer videos, but Shorts is also the worst performing of the short form video apps. 

You Can’t Manufacture Demand 

The phrase I keep coming back to over and over again is “mindless stumbled upon dopamine drivers.” That’s what apps like TikTok do best. I don’t want to take away from the relationships that creators build with followers, nor do I want to suggest that being successful within these worlds isn’t a skill. Both are very real, and we can see that through the success of apps like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. 

But most people are not opening an app like TikTok specifically for a creator; they’re opening the app for their “For You Page” feed. Though TikTok has never shared the percentage split between “For You Feed” viewing versus consumption via the “Following” feed, experts suggest that it could be as high as 90% of TikTok users. That means more than one billion people globally are theoretically opening the app and deciding they want to mindlessly scroll until they stumble upon a video (or creator) they like because it drives just enough of a dopamine hit before they go to the next video. Since there are millions of creators on TikTok catering to different interests, there is an infinite feed of content — of genuinely funny or interesting videos, and of pure slop — to keep tricking brains into seeking out dopamine hits. 

Try doing that on a streaming service with a limited amount of content and 30-90 second videos based on series that people have already seen or are compelling enough without further context to prompt longer form viewing. It’s insanely hard. Now, Netflix had the right approach in terms of content: standup specials work in segments on apps like TikTok and platforms like Netflix because the joke is contained within 30-90 second segments. You’re getting a complete experience even without watching the full special. Again, here’s the but. These 30-90 second clips work even better on social video platforms because their multi-billion dollar algorithms are able to identify certain topics or interests that appeal to you, thereby pulling in the most appealing comedians or clips from comedians instead of just superserving a greatest hits compilation of what’s available on a streaming service. 

When you add volume and atomized content to an easy to use, never ending feed, you wind up with most of what you want at that moment. It acts as a perfect distraction. This is arguably better for a platform like Netflix where Suits is available than trying to find people to watch Suits by manufacturing a feed where clips appear. We don’t have any real proof that conversion works from a short form app to a long form streaming platform, but the barrier of entry to a show is much lower on a short form app where you’re exploring different types of content. 

Think about how you feel when you’re sifting through TikTok, perhaps lying in bed or sitting on the couch after dinner. You’re relaxed. You’re a little bored. And you’re more open to watching a random video for 30 seconds than trying to find something to watch for 30 minutes or two hours on a streaming platform. The intent isn’t to redirect your attention elsewhere; it’s to hold onto it and feed the dopamine rush you’re chasing. Perceived intention rather than perceived attention is critical in these cases. If I’m opening Netflix to scroll through clips from shows — something that doesn’t work without the randomness and atomization of other types of content shouldering those clips like on TikTok — you likely instinctively understand that you’re using it as a discovery tool. You’re using it as a gateway to another activity. This potentially changes your approach to the vertical feed. It isn’t to stave off boredom, and that creates a feeling of frustration when you can’t find the next thing you want to watch. 

I’m going to attempt brutal honesty for a second, if I may: attempting to be what people want based on products they’re already using is typically a bad strategy. TikTok worked because it filled a hole in the market that no longer existed (Vine died, YouTube videos got longer). Hell, even people pointing to the New York Times being successful because of games seems to have forgotten how much of a cultural staple the New York Times Crossword existed as for years before Wordle ever made an appearance.

When you look at companies deciding to get into streaming, it wasn’t an attempt to capture attention being spent on different formats, but an acknowledgment that as audience behaviors changed (yes, in large part thanks to Netflix), companies wanted to bring that attention back to their own content. It may seem like a subtle difference, but it’s the key point: one is an effort to create an entirely new business based around capturing time that didn’t necessarily belong to these entertainment companies in the first place; the other is an attempt to ensure that time being spent with their products continued by meeting audiences where they were seemingly moving to.

Pastor’s isn’t the first, nor will he be the last to suggest building out a TikTok or YouTube Shorts competitor. As evidence shows, you can understand why everyone needs to at least explore the idea. I would strongly advise, however, further examining why something is working before asking whether it will work for you. I strongly advise analyzing whether or not the risks associated with building out a product actual people want versus what internal teams think people will use is worth the investment. Finally, and perhaps most obviously, ask if this is really going to make a dent in the overall business of what you’re trying to achieve. There are a lot of distractions to pursue. Is this a positive or a negative? 

Look, trying to capture attention is difficult. Sometimes, so is acknowledging that you don’t have to fill every role for every person. It’s okay not to be TikTok. More people need to hear that.