Comment by thehappypm
5 hours ago
Why shouldn’t TikTok just divest, then? Bytedance could make a huge amount of money by selling TikTok. And then that huge influx of money could keep TikTok operating forever. The fact that they’d rather shut down is pretty telling.
TikTok is outcompeting its US rivals Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts because their algorithm for choosing which videos to put in front of users is simply superior. Divesting means that they would need to sell that algorithm as well, which is pretty obviously worth a lot more than their US market, which is why they're making this decision.