Op-Ed: What’s the very stupid big loss if TikTok goes? – All that market reach and lots of big money

TikTok and several other prominent Chinese apps face complaints they don’t respect EU data protection rules – Copyright AFP STR

The business side of social media isn’t the subject of much discussion. If you read the news about the TikTok ban, you’d think it was all about China and the US. The only thing this “news” is missing is a run on Broadway.

The real news is as usual nothing of the sort.  TikTok isn’t just any old teen fantasyland worth billions of dollars. TikTok makes millionaires out of verbose nonentities and turns them into high-value promoters. It sells in the mega ranges.

TikTok is so very much a purely commercial thing. To be fair, it has to be. Such a high-maintenance platform with a huge US user base needs to be profitable. Doing business in the US is expensive but it can make a lot of money. It’s a sort of karmic balance.

TikTok is a big deal in music, fashion, and youth kitsch, making it an extremely valuable potential asset. If TikTok goes, the default options are Instagram (which just isn’t set up to run like TikTok and would need massive modification) and a small herd of other far iffier small-time choices, none of which have any percentage of the market reach of TikTok.

I don’t believe anyone would let this market value go to waste. There was a lot of talk about Musk buying it, but the talk has vanished suspiciously as the soap opera of the ban played out.

The ban has equally suspiciously left the Chinese owners no choice but to sell. A miraculous compromise in which some altruistic American corporation saves the day is all too likely.

There’s a reason for that. The other platforms don’t operate like TikTok. It’s unique in its approach to content. It’s a sort of endless commercial with some fun stuff.

Also to be fair, TikTok delivers. It’s the perfect low attention span choice for anyone with a phone and a few minutes to spare. It’s about as mainstream a market as you can get.

All that’s going to waste? Unlikely at best. The platform is set up and ready to go. All it needs is an owner.

Let’s leave out the inevitable incredibly clumsy foreign relations with China, and the cynical use of Federal law to acquire a major asset. Let’s assume that this is happening out of the good intentions of US corporate business.

I don’t buy a word of any of it. You won’t save two generations of US youth from poverty, but you will save them from an app they actually like and use?

Hardy ha ha.

How is that believable?

America may be politically and socially insane but not dumb enough to let a multi-billion dollar market position go to waste. If that happens, you can put a decimal point in front of the US business IQ.

If TikTok goes, it creates a huge hole in social media that needs filling. Setting up an equivalent would take a lot of time, big money, and rebuilding that user base would take far more time.

Trump has said he’ll review the TikTok position.  That sounds like a few months of bargaining to me.

This is all about business, not politics.