> Why do we need to subsidize naything? This already exists.

Because the problem presented here is: government bans TikTok, teenagers become experts at using VPN apps to work around the ban.

Social media apps live on network effects - it's near-impossible to compete with a well-established giant directly. But this also means that, if you manage to pull a critical mass of users over from your direct competitor, most of the rest will quickly switch too.

Therefore, the solution to teenagers overcoming the ban with VPN is to prop up a domestic competitor fast - pump money into it until it becomes more attractive to the kids than jumping through VPN hoops to get to TikTok. Once you get there, the problem solves itself.

(This is ofc. only for the scenario where the problem is China, not TikTok-style social media.)

Your argument rests heavily on "teens WILL overwhelmingly become VPN experts"

I don't understand why it can't instead be: banning will make domestic alternatives more attractive since now you don't even need a VPN to access it.

Sure some teens will use a VPN and continue to use TikTok, but I'm not sure it'll be to such an extent that we'd be forced to concede that banning was the wrong call.

Also you can do both: ban and subsidize.

> Your argument rests heavily on "teens WILL overwhelmingly become VPN experts"

My argument rests on "social media is sticky due to network effects".

Which is why "banning will make domestic alternatives more attractive since now you don't even need a VPN to access it" if and only if the domestic alternatives are so good in comparison to figuring out VPN, that a critical mass of domestic users switch over. Ban alone won't make it happen - TikTok is too sticky for that.

Those are teenagers we're talking about. They're resourceful, motivated, have infinite free time - learning how to use a VPN app will be trivial for them, especially that "VPN" here doesn't mean Wireguard or ISO/OSI hokus pocus, but rather a turnkey app that requires about three clicks to make your US Internet connection look like it's coming out of Somalia. It's not hard for them - and will be even easier if a ban on TikTok makes VPN companies target the teenager market directly.

> Also you can do both: ban and subsidize.

That's exactly what I recommended.

OK, you've changed my mind and I've updated more towards "banning alone is likely to be net negative to our goals if we don't also subsidize alternatives"

I think given I don't use TikTok at all I am bad at intuiting how powerful its network stickiness is.

Somehow I'm skeptical of your scenario where teenagers flock to government-sponsored social media.

It's not "government sponsored" as in Official Propaganda Arm of the United States, but rather "government sponsored" as in every other thing in your life, such as water, electricity, telecommunications, roads, policing, healthcare, ...

That doesn't change a thing -- it's not in keeping with the ordinary practices of the US, nobody wants it, and it's almost guaranteed to fail.

That's really ignoring the network effect that you're claiming to be dealing with.

As said, you don't subsidize the app creation or use. The apps already exist. The users know roughly how to use them.

The solution would be to take the X biggest content creators and pay them Y Million dollars each to stop posting on tiktok, and start posting on the competitors. Everyone else will follow.