
We Tested Instagram Reels, the TikTok Clone. What a Dud - elorant
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/12/technology/personaltech/tested-facebook-reels-tiktok-clone-dud.html
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rvz
Snapchat to TikTok: First Time?

It is Facebook's nature to copy the competition and they will stop at nothing
to integrate every single feature until it impacts TikTok. I'm suprised to see
that the authors of this article have failed to mention the same tactics used
to suffocate Snapchat are being applied to TikTok. But in the case for FB,
"Competition is for Losers" [0].

But yes for Instagram, its business as usual until every TikTok feature is
copied to death.

[0] [https://www.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiel-competition-is-
for-...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiel-competition-is-for-
losers-1410535536)

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fsociety
Copying competitors directly goes against the idea that “competition is for
losers” has. Instead this is Facebook entering a market where TikTok took the
“competition is for losers” case - in that they had no competition when they
were building it.

If Facebook makes a poorly copied TikTok, then through what mechanisms would
TikTok “lose” to Facebook? That’s where anti-trust should look at with care to
not lean against network effect, in my opinion.

I’d argue a big tech company has a right to copy, especially if the business
is zero-margin/internet enabled. I say that because Amazon eats money to
undercut competitors and that could be seen as anti-competitive behavior.

But if the copy beats the original, it should be because the product was
better.

Other food for thought. In Slack vs Microsoft Teams, some argue that Slack is
significantly better than Teams but discount that Teams has a full product
line for organizations to take advantage of.

I would argue that is not anti-competitive.. instead it’s a good product
offering. It’s not a lose-lose situation for Slack either. There are nice ways
to improve their product offering without taking a similar weight to
maintaining M$ Office/Excel and such.

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llboston
Wechat has added a TikTok like feature this year as well and it's doing pretty
well.

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Fjolsvith
Yet Wechat faces a ban too, right?

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jdpigeon
I find this an uplifting reminder that it's still possible for competition to
happen in the world of social media.

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Fjolsvith
If TikTok isn't allowed in the US, couldn't someone make an exact clone? Or
would copyright law prevent it?

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zalkota
Competition is good, get used to it.

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sushid
Did you read the article? The competition sucks. FB literally has government
intervention on it's side and it can't pump our Reels reasonably.

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sjg007
Yep. I agree it's a dud.

