TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#281

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 7:50 PM UTC

kyawzazaw wrote: post #128

CyanLite4 wrote: post #33

Trump seems intent on this because of the Tulsa Rally fiasco. But at what point does it backfire on him? Tens of millions of pissed off 18yr olds could easily sway the election. Meanwhile, Microsoft has quietly avoided the anti-trust spotlight recently yet has acquired github, LinkedIn, and now a social network that could rival Facebook. Satya Nadella is a genius.

18yr old are hopefully not pissed off primarily stemming from the ban of this one app. Regardless, young population have historically been absent from voting.

[deleted]

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#282

Post by cannabis_sam » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 7:51 PM UTC

Another step in the balkanization of the internet, to the cheers of governments around the world..

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#283

Post by kerng » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 7:52 PM UTC

philsnow wrote: post #270

kerng wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you underestimate the popularity and potential of TikTok and ByteDance at large. It's like Facebook, maybe around 2010-2012, with enormous upward potential - they might even dethrone Facebook and their offerings in the coming years. For the core Facebook app, I wouldnt be surprised if they did that already in a couple of countries.

The promise of "upward potential" of every one of these social media fads is that it could be the "last" one, the Big One that websites and captures every following generation. Do you think that TikTok is The Big One, that will still be growing at the same rate in ten years' time? I don't. Myspace and Facebook are shrinking. Some of the users leaving are going to TikTok, sure, but I don't think that means that it's b…

They can still grow by about 10x (at least I'd say). Wait until they focus or reach other demographics.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#284

Post by pasabagi » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 7:56 PM UTC

moneywoes wrote: post #168

jariel wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not 'US market forces' that will open China, and it never was. It was the opportunity to expand into global economic markets, with a certain perspective in mind, ballpark along the lines of Western Liberal Democracy and Economy. The Asian countries that followed this path after WW2 were enormously succesfull: South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan. They are basically beacons of prosperity surrounded by…

Not sure why you're getting down voted but does anything genuinely think trade has been fair for the US, Canada and China? Would love to hear the opposing side.

I also like the grandparent post, but I'll take a crack at presenting an opposing side. The idea of a lopsided trading relationship, with the US being the losers, and China the winners, seems a bit dubious to me. Chinese companies work because they have cheap labour, a lot of talent, and massive economies of scale. Blaming the demise of US industry on China is absurd - US industry started declining in the 80's, because neo-liberal economics basically amounts to industrial sabotage on the policy level. Every country that went hard neoliberal has very little industry today, while the few that didn't (Germany, France, Japan) still have very competitive industry.

The idea of unfair trade is also a bit of a mercantilist trope, so I'm not sure it makes sense on its own terms - but at the very least, it's normally something that requires an unequal relationship between trading partners. Like, I think it would be fair to say that trade deals between first and third world nations are often unfair, because there are ample opportunities for one party to lean on the other. This obviously isn't so between the US and China. If there are conditions that favour Chinese companies, it's because of policies that were, at the time, thought to benefit the US - and which probably do benefit the US, at least insofar as GDP growth is concerned (the US has remained pretty good in this arena).

Trump's whole schtick of 'bring back coal' comes to mind here. Obviously, you could hammer out a trade agreement that would end up with coal mines reopening in Wyoming, with steelworks in Pittsburgh - but would it actually help the US?

As for the whole question of whether or not China is 'playing dirty', or muscling their way through established norms, I think it's obviously not the case - or at least, it's by no means the case that China plays more dirty than anybody else - least of all the US.

I think the politics of China do deserve a great deal of scrutiny, and if there's something that the west should be putting pressure on them for, it's the slide into totalitarianism we've witnessed over the last few years. However, all the stuff about trade seems two parts grandstanding and one part hypocrisy.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#285

Post by spideymans » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 7:58 PM UTC

philsnow wrote: post #270

kerng wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you underestimate the popularity and potential of TikTok and ByteDance at large. It's like Facebook, maybe around 2010-2012, with enormous upward potential - they might even dethrone Facebook and their offerings in the coming years. For the core Facebook app, I wouldnt be surprised if they did that already in a couple of countries.

The promise of "upward potential" of every one of these social media fads is that it could be the "last" one, the Big One that websites and captures every following generation. Do you think that TikTok is The Big One, that will still be growing at the same rate in ten years' time? I don't. Myspace and Facebook are shrinking. Some of the users leaving are going to TikTok, sure, but I don't think that means that it's b…

Of course TikTok won’t be growing at the same rate in 10 years time. That doesn’t mean it won’t still be a huge platform, however.

In fact, I’d wager that, it TikTok plays their cards right, the platform could be bigger than YouTube within five years or so. I know it sounds crazy now, but there is nothing that dictates that YouTube’s model is the best for delivering democratized video publishing to the masses.

I find that a lot of these Gen Z kids don’t have the patience to sit thru a five or 10 minute YouTube video (and I can’t really blame them; how much time have you wasted watching YouTube videos that ended up being clickbait garbage?). They’d rather have the information condensed down into a 90 second video, and TikTok is perfectly designed to serve those viewing habits.

I know the popular perception of TikTok (from those that don’t use it) is that it just hosts trendy dance videos, but TikTok creators are publishing essentially all the same genres of content we see on YouTube. You can find everything from dance videos to home improvement tutorials on the service. Furthermore, more and more YouTube creators are moving over to TikTok. I view the service as the single biggest threat we’ve seen to YouTube since it’s rise to popularity.

I suspect TikToks next big move will be into YouTube’s bread and butter: official music videos. Their user interaction model lends itself extremely well into music discovery.

Also, most fundamentally, there’s only 24 hours in a day. Every hour spent on TikTok is one hour not spent on YouTube or a competing service.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#286

Post by _6fmb » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 8:00 PM UTC

dkobia wrote: post #267

billfruit wrote: post #195

As someone from the third world this leaves a very bad feeling if it happens. I do expect it runs into legal hurdles before that. Neither Apple nor Google have found TikTok problematic enough to delist them from their app stores. Neither is there charges that TikTok may have broken US laws. Banning something which hasn't broken US laws, on arbitrary grounds shouldn't be possible. The President shouldn't have authorit…

As much as I agree and being from a "third world" country myself, I can still remember China banning Facebook and Google in 2009/2010. Everyone has had to bend over backwards to gain access to the Chinese market while giving them free reign to the rest of the world.

No they didn't, both Facebook and Google decided to quit themselves. Remember Dragonfly? Google just tried to get back into China THIS YEAR and was blocked by the US government. It's the US that's closing access to China not the other way around.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#287

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 8:01 PM UTC

eugeniub wrote: post #199

Kelteseth wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you are just not the target audience here? YouTube also has videos like TikTok and it still has a bazillion users...

Yeah the TikTok core audience and the Hacker News crowd have maybe a 1% overlap.

[deleted]

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#288

Post by myspamdeli » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 8:02 PM UTC

It’s pretty clear the US gvt doesn’t care about the monopolistic practices by big tech, the privacy concerns of TikTok, or that CCP has access to user data. It’s their lack of access to the private user data of this hugely popular app they lack and are after.

Having MSFT buy it means they’ll have a back door to TikTok content immediately just like they do Skype. The US 3 letter agencies have been gunning for this ever since the app blew up, and unlike all the valley apps they have had no access to its user data.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#289

Post by philsnow » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 8:04 PM UTC

mgraczyk wrote: post #271

philsnow wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The promise of "upward potential" of every one of these social media fads is that it could be the "last" one, the Big One that websites and captures every following generation. Do you think that TikTok is The Big One, that will still be growing at the same rate in ten years' time? I don't. Myspace and Facebook are shrinking. Some of the users leaving are going to TikTok, sure, but I don't think that means that it's b…

Facebook is shrinking in some countries, but globally it is still growing in both usage and activity. Check out their recent quarterly results.

Thanks for pointing this out, my US-centrism blinded me to it.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#290

Post by zanny » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 8:05 PM UTC

philsnow wrote: post #270

kerng wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you underestimate the popularity and potential of TikTok and ByteDance at large. It's like Facebook, maybe around 2010-2012, with enormous upward potential - they might even dethrone Facebook and their offerings in the coming years. For the core Facebook app, I wouldnt be surprised if they did that already in a couple of countries.

The promise of "upward potential" of every one of these social media fads is that it could be the "last" one, the Big One that websites and captures every following generation. Do you think that TikTok is The Big One, that will still be growing at the same rate in ten years' time? I don't. Myspace and Facebook are shrinking. Some of the users leaving are going to TikTok, sure, but I don't think that means that it's b…

Importantly its because kids don't want to be a part of the "old" culture. They actively reject entering places with an older established demographic because they want to define their own spaces.

Tiktok by its nature cannot maintain the momentum it has with kids 14-18 now with the kids that are currently 8-12. They will reject it no matter what Tiktok does because thats how kids are conditioned in the west to behave.