I mean Vine was the same concept and died due to lack of profitable monetization model.

How does TikTok earn money?

If you ask me, ads with the ability to pay a monthly fee to remove them is the ideal situation.

There’s an ad when you return to the app. Since you’re expecting a full screen video to auto play, they often aren’t out of place. You can skip them immediately as well.

Besides ads, one would think there’s endless ways to monetize a strong fun brand.

> one would think there’s endless ways to monetize a strong fun brand

YikYak, Tumblr, and Vine come to mind, and that's just social media space.

When you start free, monetizing in a way that doesn't totally destroy goodwill from your existing customers is tough.

I don't really see the comparison to those apps, though. None were nearly as big as musically/tiktok. I think it's unfair to even compare it to Vine, which is featureless in comparison.