Would Anyone Really Want to Pay for TikTok?

The standard social-media bargain was never ideal, but it was simple enough. Users got to post, consume, and share with other users on a given service for free. In exchange, they could expect to be subjected to constant advertising, intimate surveillance, inclusion into theoretical future AI-training sets, and a steady barrage of new features intended to harvest as much of their allotment of earthly consciousness as possible.