“Build a local clone” — the obvious answer is that both Instagram and Snapchat already have; and that nobody wants to switch. If only the US blocked TikTok, that’d just mean there’d still be a TikTok that every other western country has access to except the US, full of content interesting to Westerners. People with Android devices would just sideload it, and use VPNs to access it if necessary.
The less-obvious answer: TikTok is the local clone, in a sense. It’s a separate app from the Chinese Douyin app.
Personally, I’d suggest copying China’s own strategy here: tell ByteDance that if they want to operate in the US, it has to be through a contract with a non-owned US company staffed by US citizens. Essentially making TikTok into an American company that just happens to license some Chinese software IP.
You gotta get the SV nerds who run instagram stories to stop bending the knee to ads and focus on UX and make a product users actually enjoy using to be a viable competitor.
Instagram has like a 3% success rate at suggesting content from people I don't follow. Tiktok is easily over 30%.
Calling instagram a competitor to tiktok is about as naive as thinking an infomercial will pull market share from a prime time drama: it'll catch a few, but its so much worse it has no hopes of cornering the market.
Will it? Part of Tiktok's genius is that you don't even need an account to view content, or even the app - the browser experience is quite good.
Now compare the friction between wanting to see a Tiktok right now, versus trying to see one of whatever Snap's equivalent is, or Facebook and Instagram's.
Maybe that friction exists cause western companies follow some pesky regulations about user data. And, they want to make sure they can monetize their content by blocking unlimited access to those who have not accepted their terms and conditions.
Maybe tiktok doesn't follow those to begin with...
Both TikTok and Instagram are banned in Russia, and yet people use still them. You're underestimating the “network effect”. (Is there a proper name for that?)
The less-obvious answer: TikTok is the local clone, in a sense. It’s a separate app from the Chinese Douyin app.
Personally, I’d suggest copying China’s own strategy here: tell ByteDance that if they want to operate in the US, it has to be through a contract with a non-owned US company staffed by US citizens. Essentially making TikTok into an American company that just happens to license some Chinese software IP.