🎥 The Unintended Consequences of A TikTok Ban

In anticipation of a potential TikTok ban, people are starting to download Red Note (Xiaohongshu), another Chinese video app. Red Note has become the #1 downloaded free app on the US App Store over the last couple of days.

This is classic law of unintended consequences. The main three short form video platforms in China have been Douyin (TikTok’s Chinese version), Xiaohongshu, and Kuaishou.

It highlights the absurdity and difficulty of banning a specific app. It’s like trying to ban Pizza Hut because you think pizza is unhealthy. If that happens, it means Dominos and Papa Johns increase their market share.

And then let’s say they decide to ban pizza chains, then all other restaurants will start serving pizza on their menu.

Point being — the scope of the ban and the reason of the ban is so slippery to pin down.

Xiaohongshu is significantly less American and much more Chinese than TikTok! At least TikTok has many American investors, employees, and offices when compared to Red Note/Xiaohongshu.

The TikTok discussion isn’t an indictment of social commerce but a validation of social commerce. If I was a product manager at Instagram or YouTube I would be rushing new live & social commerce product features.

There are already TikTok alternatives that have significant traction in other regions. For example, Bigo Live has 400 Million users and is popular in Southeast Asia and Latin America. TikTok is banned in India but alternatives like Moj and Josh have hundreds of millions of users each.

Regardless of what happens to TikTok, we are still in the early growth stages of these short-form video apps that embrace social & live commerce.