The end game is eliminating the last remaining human element in the engagement optimization pipeline, so that the corporations can control 100% of it.

Platforms like YouTube and TikTok already have almost full control of how the majority of users spend their time on their platforms. They open the app, they immediately get a feed of content algorithmically selected to keep them on the app for as long as possible. They don't need to search, they don't need to think about what they want to watch, they just consume. Fully automated consumption with 0 human effort involved.

Well, almost. There's one last thing remaining: you still need humans to produce the content that you then put on people's feeds. Or rather, needed. Now that the actual production can also be automated, those platforms no longer need to put effort into finding existing human-created content that will keep people watching - they can just generate new, algorithmically perfect content. This is their endgame.

Other advantages to generating content: (1) fewer copyright issues. (2) No creators to pay, just GPU bills scaling with the use of the platform. (3) a much smaller critical mass.

Given these advantages I expect the current "social media" to be replaced with a new one, rather than them pivoting. The next big thing after tiktok might be something that only has generated content, where a last final bit of "social" is taken out of "social media".