[pjc50]

> ByteDance might have financial backing and motivations that make it easier to throw more money at this problem than its American competitors.

American VC can provide almost unlimited money. What it can't do is focus its spending on things that actually work.

The original question frames this in terms of technical talent, but it's not that at all. There are all sorts of US firms and even HN posters who could, given the right spec, come up with as good a solution for the problem of low latency smooth delivery of various videos.

No, the problem is choosing to make the right product. TikTok is good for the same reason that original Whatsapp was good: it had to succeed on its merits, rather than being part of a giant tech company. Whereas how many products has Google launched and then canned in that time? Was Stadia great technologically? Doesn't matter, it's dead.

Conversely, the Reddit video player on web is bad for the same reason that all the rest of the web app is bad: it's supposed to be, because of the dark pattern monetization that's supposed to force you into using the app.

[ActorNightly]

I think the idea behind Tik Tok being good is that it was designed with tech goals in mind, unlike monetization in apps based out of US companies. My bet is that Bytedance is building generative models for video/audio for propaganda purposes (with the government involved of course), and Tik Tok is essentially their data set generator, so they designed the system for throughput from the ground up.

[noobermin]

I'm sympathetic but remember failed start ups that too are trying to succeed[0] on their on merits are a dime a dozen. It explains somethings but not why they succeeded.

[0]...or at least until being bought out by the big players you mentioned