[bogwog]

TikTok is an example of a successful Chinese company that is out-competing US social media giants. If they were a US company, Facebook or Google would've bought and killed them when they were an early startup.

American big tech companies aren't competitive in anything. They're entrenched monopolies. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon products are all shit, but users don't really have any other choice. If we break them up, it will create market opportunity for actual innovation in the US.

The question is whether we actually have the talent and expertise to innovate once you remove all of the current artificial barriers (big tech monopolies, walled gardens, etc).

I think we do. At least more than China, where most of their big tech companies seem to be built on stolen and cloned tech.

[freedomben]

> They're entrenched monopolies. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon products are all shit, but users don't really have any other choice.

If their products are all shit, how are they able to maintain their monopolies? Why hasn't a competitor started up that offered a better product?

[bogwog]

Is this question meant to be rhetorical, or are you genuinely asking? Because the answer is simple: that's how monopolies work. Monopolies don't need to compete to succeed, they just need some way to exclude competitors. All of those companies have multiple ways to do that for most/all of their products.

[freedomben]

> Is this question meant to be rhetorical, or are you genuinely asking?

It's a little of both to be honest. I disagree that their products are shit (in fact some of their products I think are really damn good), and I don't see how short of coercion with government or a private army or something that you could maintain a monopoly with products that suck.

But I genuinely think I might be missing something here. Maybe a better question is, how are they able to maintain their monopolies with shit products? Huge barriers to entry combined with quick acquisition of competitors? That's mostly how Rockefeller did it in the 19th century, but that's not a good parallel either because he didn't have a shit product.

[amadeuspagel]

TikTok is based on a US company - musical.ly - which was not bought by any US social media giant, maybe due to anti-trust concerns.

[bogwog]

Wasn't Musical.ly a Chinese company too? Wikipedia says they were headquartered in Shanghai with an office in California.

[amadeuspagel]

You're right, I misremembered that.