Many people criticize it, calling it "nipple music," making people stupid, addicted, and wasting time.

But if you really understand Chinese society, you'll realize:
it might be one of the greatest internet products of the past decade.
Why?
Because it solves not just efficiency issues, but a bigger problem:
emotional value.
Some people have rich lives and many entertainment options, and may think short videos are meaningless.
But in more places and for more people—
small cities, counties, rural areas, factories, construction sites, rental houses—
many people's lives are actually quite monotonous:
working during the day, scrolling on their phones at night. In the past, there was only Mahjong, card games, TV.
Now there's an additional choice:
open it and get a little happiness anytime. This isn't "nipple music," it's low-cost spiritual consumption.
For many, it's not about making them worse but about making their lives less boring and less lonely.
More importantly, it has also done another severely underestimated thing:
provided ordinary people with opportunities to earn money.
In the past, traffic belonged to TV stations, media companies, celebrities.
Now:
a rural mom
a small shop owner
an ordinary worker
can earn income through short videos, live streaming, and selling products.
This is the first time the internet has truly given "the right to expression" and "monetization opportunities" to ordinary people.
Why do elites often criticize it?
Because they see the problem from a "cognitive efficiency" perspective:
fragmentation
declining attention span
shallow information
But the reality is:
without it, many people wouldn't read or learn,
they would just play cards, drink, or binge TV shows.
Short videos haven't lowered cognition;
they've just replaced lower-quality entertainment.
From a business perspective, it's a phenomenon-level product:
powerful algorithms
extremely long usage times
strong monetization capabilities
There has been almost no other product in the past decade that achieves all three.
If you had to summarize its essence, it is:
mass emotional infrastructure.
Like electricity or tap water,
it doesn't provide knowledge or efficiency,
but—
in this increasingly lonely era,
it offers ordinary people a little relaxation, a little happiness, a sense of existence.
Many underestimate one thing:
the most profitable business in the future won't just be about improving efficiency but providing emotional value.
And this is one of the most successful emotional products of this era.