Aside from whatever algorithm they use for serving lives themselves I also want to point out the following: No one downloads TikTok just to watch lives. You do

Aside from whatever algorithm they use for serving lives themselves I also want to point out the following: No one downloads TikTok just to watch lives. You download TikTok because you heard it was entertaining. Or if you were early, because you kept seeing ads for it back when TikTok was buying a lot of ads to promote TikTok. The algorithms keep you scrolling the normal For You Page (“FYP”). Every now and then the algorithms put a live stream in the FYP. So even if the Live algorithm might not be sophisticated (which I don’t know if is true – I don’t work for ByteDance), it is certainly the case that it is the algorithms that draw people into the TikTok live streams in the first place for a lot of people. And then one day people get unlucky and they are sucked into one of the streams where it seems that everyone is gifting and they get the feeling that the lady in the article talked about when they make an innocent $1 gift, and if they are even more unlucky it spirals out of control for them.