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Cake day: August 12th, 2023

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  • At the same time, social networking is built into the most popular Chinese online shopping platforms, like Taobao, Tmall, and JD.com. They feature livestreamed videos of shopping influencers, and robust chat and photo-sharing functions, blurring the lines between social media and e-commerce.

    The model has delivered: In 2023, TikTok’s Chinese sister app, Douyin, said its platform sales exceeded 2 trillion yuan ($2 billion). Xiaohongshu doesn’t disclose detailed figures, but the app’s aggressive expansion into social commerce in 2023 coincided with the first year it turned a net profit to the tune of $500 million.

    So China has several profitable social media companies and a model that works regardless of the platform. It feels like Insta has tried this and doesn’t quite understand the mechanics but imitates showing influencer driven decisions. The difference is that western influencers sell their exposure while TikTok (et al) use influencers as their product and charge to alter the algorithm to expose the product to a targeted audience. It’s insidious because people will be shown something that they didn’t know they wanted and led to believe that they made the decision to get this thing. It’s Inception, but with our hobbies and interests.

    The ramifications for niche porn are tremendous. Both weird categories of pornography and the idea that small groups will be fed a constant stream of their own unique interests. Imagine if you didn’t know this was happening and had an expensive hobby. Social media wants you to buy things and will give you the connection to spend instead of pursuing the hobby.

    The hobby may soon not be about what we do but what we bought to show we are hobbyists. Consumption as participation. I guess we already do this with streaming entertainment, so why not?





  • The merger isn’t supposed to help consumers. It’s to help businesses that are incapable of keeping up and need support. The Japanese government has a history of merging companies together to ensure that they stay competitive. MITI did it in the 70s to Japanese technology companies like Sony, Sharp, Panasonic, etc. most of those are still around today and even leading the industry.

    Again, this isn’t to help any consumers.







  • Tesla is expected to sell like crazy because they are one of the only EV carmakers to not be hit full force by tariffs. However, given the public reception of Musk, the car brand may see a long term decline as fewer vehicles are purchased in the US and EU for different reasons. Chinese EVs will sink EU and APAC sales and people don’t want to give Elon any of their money if they can help it.

    Tesla also doesn’t create any new vehicle models or redesign of their initial line up that was created 12 years ago. He’s coasting on the demand and has no plans for doing anything different. I would expect Tesla to hit hard times after a decade or so.

    TL;DR - a small bump in sales followed by a steady fall off before Trump Part Deux is done.