As TikTok is slowly being purchased by the US from China, the question remains: was it a good idea for TikTok to have sold out?
To answer this question, we have to look at the technology, social atmosphere and politics in order to determine if it was a good choice.
TikTok has amassed a significant following through its app. In the social media world they are right up there with Facebook, in terms of social media clout. Let’s take up each aspect of the three domains mentioned above.
- Technology-wise TikTok has great infrastructure and is dealing with thousands of videos being posted every minute. Their servers are strong and can handle the load. By this reason itself, TikTok could have easily taken on millions of more users and would’ve had the chance to develop further technology that would have rivalled that of Twitter and Facebook. The future prospects of TikTok were tremendous and accepting to sell to an American company seems like a quick bargain.
- The social atmosphere was fantastic for TikTok, it was spreading fast all over the world and making a Chinese app succeed in the West is very hard, yet they still did it. They had the users onboarding and the social climate was conducive to their expansion. They had the upper hand over the West and by rejecting a deal with them would have had socio-political implications for the Chinese government. Selling out, thereby, seems like a bad choice.
- Politically, TikTok had the upper hand – as stated before. In terms of global affairs, had TikTok not sold out, they could have dealt a blow to the West by being banned there. This may have led to a sympathetic feeling towards China, allowing China to gain ground in a political way on the world stage.
Well, China did sell out in the end, and as of the time of this writing, it is unknown how much was offered to TikTok to lose ground in America, Canada, Australia and Britain. One thing is known for sure, that a Chinese startup has actually become a world-wide sensation. And that speaks loudly to the export of Silicon Valley into the rest of the world.
Dcoderr 