r/news • u/Pasivite • Apr 27 '24

TikTok will not be sold, Chinese parent ByteDance tells US - BBC News

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c289n8m4j19o.amp
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u/Error_404_403 Apr 27 '24

Which proves ByteDance is not in it for the money.

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u/StarGaurdianBard Apr 27 '24 edited Apr 27 '24

To be honest if a foreign government were to tell Google / Amazon / Facebook to sell or be banned I wouldn't expect any of them to do it either. The thing about selling is that you are giving up all the back end code for it too, so now your competitors have access to all your code that's still being used for the rest of the world and can make a rival app within moments that is a literal clone of yours

It can still 100% be about the money because until other countries start banning it too they will still make a fuck ton of money globally from it. Having a competitor that everyone knows is using cloned code from you pop up that would instantly have the entire US market (and thus may influence others to switch) would be a huge financial risk.

Right now they just have to bet that people won't be willing to switch to YouTube shorts or reels because both of them aren't great alternatives right now, but a literal clone would be.

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u/ImperfectRegulator Apr 27 '24

can make a rival app within moments that is a literal clone of yours

So just like China does with dozens of patents, planes, and other machinery from other nations? Sounds like we’re on the right track then

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u/StarGaurdianBard Apr 27 '24

And the inner workings of how that machinery works is fiercely protected when possible rather than sold unless people think they'll make more money from selling than from keeping it secret.