Hacker News Reader

Comment by mrtksn | Hacker News Reader

US companies can no longer innovative in these areas and Chinese began to take over. TikTok is a prime example, if nothing changes the USA will have to use muscles(like Trump is trying to do) to keep their internet companies relevant or have its citizens use Chinese networks. Both options are bad for the consumer in the long run.

TikTok is only one example but soon others will come. The quality of Gmail and Google Search is not what it used to be, Huawei are aiming for Apple-like integration on their platforms(and on Android, there's no one else doing it) and so on. Google And Facebook are simply printing ad money, I don't even remember what was the last "Wow moment" with them.

View on HN

I think we give too much credit to an application that plays videos on a phone. Just because its popular and used by millions doesn't make the app and the idea impressive. Vine was excellent and it was killed. You can talk about neat UX/UI ideas in Tiktok, but it's not that groundbreaking. If anything else, its the infrastructure that allows them to scale it is impressive. Both FB and Google are masters at scaling so its a non issue.

Innovation in China will continue, no doubt. But let's put things into perspective. You're comparing a $40b app, that is Tiktok (similar to Airbnb valuation) to completely different monsters - Some trillions in valuation (1.5T Microsoft, 2T Apple, 1T Google, 700B FB).

>I think we give too much credit to an application that plays videos on a phone

And what Youtube or Instagram does? Doing laundry on a phone?

If it was a simple UX tweak situation the USA wouldn't be using it's muscles to force a take over by an US company. Unless of course there are no designers left in SV due to high rents. How much was that to take over TikTok USA operations? 50 billion? I am sure that you can hire designers for that money.

And any argument over a strong current situation reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U

Exactly my point - it is the scaling that makes it impressive as I stated. And Google/FB are experts at doing just that. Lol at the video!

I am not defending US Gov. All I am saying is getting traction is extremely valuable and those are the numbers you hear (ARPU, etc) in quarter conference calls. $40 billion dollars is for the users not for the stupid UX/UI.

> the USA wouldn't be using it's muscles to force a take over by an US company

This is almost entirely Trump and his stupidity. Don't think he truly represents the USA, once he is out we will almost certainly have to wash our collective hands of him

And TikTok has yet to prove itself as more than a passing fad. Someone will add a new twist on TikTok's/Vine's formula and the kids will be off to obsessing over something else. They've already done so with Instagram, Snapchat, Vine...

>Don't think he truly represents the USA, once he is out we will almost certainly have to wash our collective hands of him

You can't wash your hands of him, He is democratically elected as a representative of you.

But I agree that TikTok is yet to prove itself. That said, I think it is an example what is about to come if the USA doesn't close off its market(which will lead to others close off their markets to foreigners and the internet will become balkanised) or break up its current Internet companies situation. Sure, FB and Google will continue to earn an enormous amount of ad money in the years to come just like Nokia continued to sell it's phones until it couldn't anymore.

> You can't wash your hands of him, He is democratically elected as a representative of you.

What I mean by that is that his actions do not represent the American public at large. The nature of his victory is highly suspicious and he did not secure a majority vote. I don't know how much you know about our politics but there is a lot of nuance that you are glossing over.

Additionally, his popular support is at an all-time low. Election polls for 2020 show him lagging considerably behind Biden. At this point he is very likely to be one of the few presidents that will not be elected to a second-term; the first in 28 years.

Whatever propaganda you are reading or seeing or hearing about us, you would do well to question it

>He [Trump] is democratically elected...

False. The election of the President and Vice President is fundamentally undemocratic (by design). Only Congress is democratically elected.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com