This is not surprising in the historical sense. "The Master Switch" by Tim Wu shows how this repeatedly happened to industry after industry, with every disruptive comms technology bringing about a stage of unfettered, ebullient, and at times reckless innovation, followed by consolidation, monopolistic behaviors, and finally regulation where the govt essentially creates inefficient but necessary safeguards against otherwise monopolistic, predatory, large companies. It happened with radio, television, landline telephony, mobile telephony, Internet, PC OSes, mobile OSes, social networks, and it is not over. It is the natural tendency of capitalistic markets with network externalities. The saving grace of it is, and that looks rather unusual from the historical perspective, there is still a relatively effective notion of net neutrality (Chinese firewall excluded). This means it is possible for an upstart like TikTok to effectively challenge incumbents like Facebook or Snap in a way that competitive telcos never could have 30 years ago (they really needed govts to crack monopolies open).
