Comment by mrtksn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mrtksn | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure that anyone understands it, really.

In Turkey TikTok people and Instagram/Twitter people cater to completely separate demographics[from all ages]. People in Instagram/Twitter world would be exposed to funny TikTok videos quite often through Instagram/Twitter celebrities but TikTok is viewed as the place where "rednecks do cringy things that are sometimes funny but I don't want to be associated with".

BBC Turkish did a short documentary[0] on Turkish TikTok celebrities, they were talking about their desire(but a failure) to migrate their fanbase to YouTube since the monetisation was not good enough on TikTok. They portrayed TikTok as a place for everyday people, unlike other places like Instagram where apparently everyone lives a glamorous life.

[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FURmgQJYHY

If one told me beforehand that those people from conservative background would do such things on a video and share it with the rest of the world, I'd say you have no idea about Turkish culture. But now I say I had no idea about Turkish culture and what those people are capable of. I literally get shocked every time I watch a tiktok compilation video. I wonder if those are the same people I see in the street everyday.

As the saying goes, 'everyone has a little red under their collar.'

(In the abstracted, skin-tone neutral sense)

Don't forget FB was once only for college students. And now grandparents and 2 year olds are on it (unfortunately). Even Reddit was once only for a very specific audience. Now it's in top 5 most visited sites in the US.

I think Zuck understands the threat better than most. And this is precisely why the government should not allow him to buy anymore of these competitors, no matter how early in their startup life. No monopoly should be allowed to buy any competition at whatever level.

If they want to compete, they should build their own solutions and compete on merit. They should certainly have all the money and clout they need for that (it's just that often they completely misunderstand the "new markets", but that's their own leadership problem and nobody owns them anything so that they remain a monopoly).

I certainly wish Instagram and WhatsApp didn't belong to FB or any of the Big Tech right now.

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