It just sounds like a lot of work trying to fit a round peg in a square hole. Point taken that the content (maybe) exists on the platform, but if I can't find it what good is it? As essentially a worldwide daily competition for virality, it seems like it'll trend to what is mass entertainment.
Yah, if you're looking for particular content or something it's not a great app. It's really meant to be a maximally configurable timewaster. The app doesn't care if you waste an hour on dancing videos or slime videos or politics videos, as long as you spend it on the app.
I don't think things go viral on it quite the way they do on other platforms - like on youtube, to a certain degree, anything viral enough is going to show up in the recommendations for everyone. Less so on TikTok, I think.