For roughly $1,000, chances are you’ll go away an Apple retailer with a brand-new, hermetically sealed iPhone that’s been personalised for you by way of a verified Genius.
Or, for loads and even hundreds of greenbacks extra, you’ll be able to purchase a used telephone with a cracked display and dirt-filled audio system, from anyone on the web.
All of it simply depends upon how a lot you’re keen on TikTok.
When the video-sharing app stopped running in the USA on Saturday night after the Supreme Court subsidized a legislation that successfully banned the app, some customers deleted the app from their telephones. The following day, the app set to work once more when President Trump stated he used to be making plans an executive order to pause enforcement of the legislation. However, as of Thursday, Apple and Google, which had got rid of TikTok from their app retail outlets to conform to the legislation, had no longer made it to be had once more for obtain.
The uncertainty about whether or not the app will go back to the app retail outlets has brought about some individuals who by no means got rid of the app to view their telephones like golden tickets, coveted by way of somebody who misses thumbing via TikTok’s set of rules or had followings that they are able to’t succeed in once they swiftly got rid of the app.
It used to be no longer right away transparent what number of people deleted TikTok and whether or not it’s going to go back to app retail outlets. However folks like Piotr Gustab, 37, of Queens, are seeing alternative within the uncertainty.
A data generation engineer, Mr. Gustab, indexed his iPhone 15 Professional with TikTok downloaded onto it for $3,000 on Fb Market. That’s about thrice the price of a brand-new iPhone 16 Professional. On Thursday evening, he had an be offering for $1,200, nonetheless greater than virtually each brand-new iPhone and just about two times up to a refurbished iPhone 15 Professional with out TikTok.
“It will be a just right deal for me as a result of I may just get a pair hundred bucks on it,” Mr. Gustab, stated. He’s going to drop his asking worth right down to $2,000 if he does no longer get a greater be offering quickly, he stated.
“UNLOCKED WITH TIKTOK and CAPCUT,” an commercial on Poshmark reads ($3,500). “iPhone 14 Professional UNLOCKED! W/ TikTok,” a list on eBay calls out ($3,000). On Fb Market, dealers come with display recordings of their listings to make sure that TikTok is put in at the telephone.
“This TikTok app is price so much, guy,” stated Izell Malloy, 20, a automotive salesman and Twitch streamer from New London, Conn. He stated he used to be presented $5,700 via Fb Market for his iPhone with TikTok on it.
Possibly iPhone listings inquiring for $30,000 aren’t lifelike. (Trait’n Keniston, 20, of Newport Information, Va., posted his telephone with TikTok for this quantity however stated he used to be no longer sure that the five-figure bids he gained had been actual.) Even customers going via essentially the most critical TikTok withdrawals can be hard-pressed to shop for a used telephone for the cost of a 2025 Toyota Prius.
However in case you’re taking into account doling out even a couple of further dollars for a TikTok telephone, Freddy Tran Nager, the affiliate director of the Virtual Social Media program on the College of Southern California, thinks that’s a in point of fact unhealthy thought.
“It’s very dangerous habits to shop for a telephone that hasn’t been wiped,” Mr. Nager stated, relating to a typical reset procedure that might no longer happen on a TikTok telephone. Those telephones, Mr. Nager warned, “may just come with spy ware and different viruses that would in point of fact endanger your privateness.”
There are more secure choices. TikTok remains to be available on internet browsers, and some users on Reddit say they’ve discovered a workaround to obtain the app. Even on telephones with out viruses or malware, TikTok’s unsure long term makes it tough for Mr. Nager to look the worth in those telephones. If TikTok has a long-term long term, it’s going to be downloadable once more, he thinks.
TikTok’s absence from app retail outlets might sound acquainted. “The Western global fell into chaos,” The New York Times wrote in 2014, when Flappy Fowl, an addictive sport the place customers guided a small chook via a disadvantage route, used to be got rid of from app retail outlets. Telephones with the app downloaded were listed for astronomical costs.
Mr. Nager stated TikTok is other. Some programs like video games can paintings completely high-quality without reference to the corporate’s possession problems.
“The TikTok app is just a gateway to get admission to a web page or a platform,” Mr. Nager stated. If TikTok is going darkish once more, the app is “only a piece of artwork.”
However artwork, like good looks, is within the eye of the beholder. To anyone, the renegade and pop-culture memes may well be price a couple of months’ hire.
