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Twitter, TikTok Have Held Preliminary Talks About Possible Combination

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Re: Twitter, TikTok Have Held Preliminary Talks About Possible Combination

#81

Post by refurb »

fermienrico wrote: post #79
refurb wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we saw one of the biggest wealth transfers in the history of mankind - Some 30 trillion dollars of growth in China. Economic growth is not the same as a wealth transfer. It's not a zero sum game.

It is an opportunity cost though, no? That wealth could have resulted in domestic progress. If I am making Jeans in 1995 in America, but in 2000 I lay off workers, shut down cotton fields, dying processes, etc. and off shore it, while hiring 2 people instead of 50 - to manage suppliers, that indeed, unquestionably has resulted in loss of wealth. Can you explain how this would be a zero sum game? I know @naval keeps t…

My comment was more that it's not a zero sum game and that a significant part of China's growth was not at the expense of the US (but part of it obviously was).

By offshoring the manufacturing of jeans, American jobs were lost, correct. But presumably the cost of manufacturing was lowered which opened up new markets (can charge less and still make a profit) and those profits flowed back into the US. And at the same time, American consumers benefited by lower cost jeans (whether price decrease or a slowing of price increases).

The Chinese benefited because they were get a piece of that overall value chain - the manufacturing part.

Re: Twitter, TikTok Have Held Preliminary Talks About Possible Combination

#82

Post by someperson »

djeiasbsbo wrote: post #80
someperson wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try opening YouTube in an incognito tab and start watching a few videos (on say, cooking). You'll notice the recommended videos on the homepage gets very accurate very fast. The algorithms behind recommendation engines are well understood. Companies can and do invest huge amounts into making their algorithms better and it yes, it definitely takes a lot of effort to tweak and refine the algorithm to make the overall e…

Regarding your example with youtube, how do you know that youtube doesn't just recognise you and serve you your "personal profile"? Did you completely change your IP address? Did you spoof/hide any other aspects of your browser configuration? Private browsing or not, you would probably easily be recognisable based on IP + browser fingerprint alone so youtube could just continue to serve you the same videos.

Pick a topic that you've never searched for. Eg, "Paris tour", "strawberry farming", and watch a video for 10+ seconds. Then go back to the homepage.

It has completely updated based on what YouTube has learned about your interests based on your search and view history.

It works even without searching (eg, click through on a link on the default homepage).

Re: Twitter, TikTok Have Held Preliminary Talks About Possible Combination

#83

Post by baby »

fermienrico wrote: post #72
justinzollars wrote: post #54

The United States' brand is that we are an open, dynamic, stable place to do business in. If you have capital its safe here because of our respect of the rule of law, and private property rights. We should strive to be the best place on earth to do business in. We are an open country and we benefit from being open. We benefit from competition. We are literally richer by definition - when business like TikTok choose t…

United States' brand has been damaged by our own doing. Specifically, the executives that paid off the politicians whose job was to ensure a level playing field in terms of trade. I am really convinced of the following, open for critiques: US Executives paid off politicians who then allowed trade deficit to pile up, we saw one of the biggest wealth transfers in the history of mankind - Some 30 trillion dollars of gro…

For the US to be stable and grow it needs the rest of the world to be stable and grow. Simple as.

Re: Twitter, TikTok Have Held Preliminary Talks About Possible Combination

#84

Post by baby »

someperson wrote: post #28

It's worth constantly re-iterating that Vine [1] was shutdown by Twitter in 2017 back when Twitter was losing a lot of cash. It was available for any tech company to purchase for pennies on the dollar and was losing $10 million/month to run [2]. Vine was very popular and a lot of people were very disappointed when it was shutdown. It predated TikTok and Musical.ly and certainly had the vast majority of users for shor…

I never understood why vine went away. It seemed like everybody enjoyed it, it had its stars that were producing content constantly, and it seemed like it had great potential for growth. And then all of sudden it was shut down.

Re: Twitter, TikTok Have Held Preliminary Talks About Possible Combination

#85

Post by yomly »

fermienrico wrote: post #70
magicsmoke wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capital is only safe in the US if you respect it's economic, technological, and military primacy. Ask Russia or Iran if they would be willing to store their wealth in the US. Iran's on a permanent blacklist for nationalising US economic interests and challenging American military influence in the middle East, and Russia too for daring to use its military on Ukraine in a world where only the US has the prerogative to…

I read somewhere that it is difficult to get money out of China if you set up a business there, BMW/VW have been denied withdrawal of funds from China since 2016. At that rate, China seems like a pretty poor place to put your money. Doesn't matter if their domestic technological pace is impressive. Can anyone honestly think that in 10 years, they would trust the CCP enough to buy property or invest there?

I would happily take that risk if I could get exposure to the shenzhen property market...

Re: Twitter, TikTok Have Held Preliminary Talks About Possible Combination

#86

Post by mantas »

tanilama wrote: post #69
justinzollars wrote: post #54

The United States' brand is that we are an open, dynamic, stable place to do business in. If you have capital its safe here because of our respect of the rule of law, and private property rights. We should strive to be the best place on earth to do business in. We are an open country and we benefit from being open. We benefit from competition. We are literally richer by definition - when business like TikTok choose t…

And US tech companies will be the big loser, if the other countries are going to apply the same national security argument to themselves. Who would they sacrifice then? Obviously, it will be the Big Techs.

Aren't Google and FB already banned in China?

Re: Twitter, TikTok Have Held Preliminary Talks About Possible Combination

#87

Post by laser »

someperson wrote: post #28

It's worth constantly re-iterating that Vine [1] was shutdown by Twitter in 2017 back when Twitter was losing a lot of cash. It was available for any tech company to purchase for pennies on the dollar and was losing $10 million/month to run [2]. Vine was very popular and a lot of people were very disappointed when it was shutdown. It predated TikTok and Musical.ly and certainly had the vast majority of users for shor…

Don’t conflate ByteDance and TikTok. ByteDance makes the vast majority of its revenue from a mobile feed app called TouTiao and Chinese-TikTok called Douyin. It would be utterly insane if TikTok was making $5.6 billion a quarter already, but its likely not even at a tenth of that revenue yet.

Re: Twitter, TikTok Have Held Preliminary Talks About Possible Combination

#88

Post by fermienrico »

refurb wrote: post #81
fermienrico wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is an opportunity cost though, no? That wealth could have resulted in domestic progress. If I am making Jeans in 1995 in America, but in 2000 I lay off workers, shut down cotton fields, dying processes, etc. and off shore it, while hiring 2 people instead of 50 - to manage suppliers, that indeed, unquestionably has resulted in loss of wealth. Can you explain how this would be a zero sum game? I know @naval keeps t…

My comment was more that it's not a zero sum game and that a significant part of China's growth was not at the expense of the US (but part of it obviously was). By offshoring the manufacturing of jeans, American jobs were lost, correct. But presumably the cost of manufacturing was lowered which opened up new markets (can charge less and still make a profit) and those profits flowed back into the US. And at the same t…

> those profits flowed back into the US

We are on the same page then - those profits do flow back to the US, but as huge pays for CEOs, executives and the upper echelons of the company. This was the original premise of my argument, and you're right - it is not a zero sum game strictly speaking.

We haven't done enough to make sure the middleclass wages rise with the increased economic output. American wages have been stagnant [1] even though those companies have brought back wealth.

If there were laws that oversee buy-backs, disproportional executive pays, corporate taxes, and other systems that ensure that profits do actually benefit the nation - we would have been in a better position.

I am not a proponent of some kind of socialistic marxist society; Capitalism with strict laws and checks/balances is great.

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us...

Re: Twitter, TikTok Have Held Preliminary Talks About Possible Combination

#89

Post by powerapple »

fermienrico wrote: post #70
magicsmoke wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capital is only safe in the US if you respect it's economic, technological, and military primacy. Ask Russia or Iran if they would be willing to store their wealth in the US. Iran's on a permanent blacklist for nationalising US economic interests and challenging American military influence in the middle East, and Russia too for daring to use its military on Ukraine in a world where only the US has the prerogative to…

I read somewhere that it is difficult to get money out of China if you set up a business there, BMW/VW have been denied withdrawal of funds from China since 2016. At that rate, China seems like a pretty poor place to put your money. Doesn't matter if their domestic technological pace is impressive. Can anyone honestly think that in 10 years, they would trust the CCP enough to buy property or invest there?

US and China are both safe to invest if you ask me. Their economies are big and militarily strong. I would put some money in both countries.

Re: Twitter, TikTok Have Held Preliminary Talks About Possible Combination

#90

Post by bduerst »

mantas wrote: post #86
tanilama wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And US tech companies will be the big loser, if the other countries are going to apply the same national security argument to themselves. Who would they sacrifice then? Obviously, it will be the Big Techs.

Aren't Google and FB already banned in China?

Yep, but Apple and Amazon would face major losses.
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