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GP was wrong. They acquired musica.ly in 2017 for $800 million. Musica.ly accounts for a minuscule portion of their valuation. The article itself clearly spells

GP was wrong. They acquired musica.ly in 2017 for $800 million. Musica.ly accounts for a minuscule portion of their valuation. The article itself clearly spells out what Bytedance's main businesses are, but commenters don't appear to want to read!

sorenjan 8y ago
I can't see how it's worth close to $800 million either. Besides the icky sexualized content, isn't ads to kids illegal in most countries? How are you going to monetize that market? And even if it's legal, how moral is it?
- fspeech 8y ago
  All I could say is that if there were a clear way for monetizing their user base musical.ly would not have been sold for that price. But it is not very relevant to Bytedance's valuation or main businesses either way.
  - echevil 8y ago
    musical.ly never had the same level of success TikTok now has, and it probably hasn’t focused on monetization at the time it was sold. Plus Bytedance owns quite a few apps many of which are extremely popular
- qubax 8y ago
  > I can't see how it's worth close to $800 million either. It's worth $800 million because someone was willing to buy it for $800 million. Why is anything worth anything? Because someone is willing to pay for it. > isn't ads to kids illegal in most countries? What? Then how does nickelodean, toys stores, kids clothes store, etc exist? I can assure you that ads to kids are most definitely legal in most countries. We have back-to-school sales and of course we have christmas. > And even if it's legal, how moral is it? What's immoral about it? Targetting adult specific ( cigarettes, alcohol ) to kids shouldn't be allowed, but what's immoral about targeting age specific products to kids? You sound like people saying kids shouldn't be taught about sex education, learn about violent news, etc. Kids and everyone should be taught about ads and adults should help kids deal with ads because ads are a part of life and they are going to have to deal with it eventually. Rather than ads themselves, I think the lack of educating kids about ads is the problem. But lots of backwards controlling parents want to keep children uninformed and naive and ill prepared for real life.
  - blacksmith_tb 8y ago
    I'd rather ban it all, but the idea that advertising targeted at children should be banned for various reasons[1][2] is not especially obscure. 1: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9984366/Ban-advertising-aimed-at-primary-school-children.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9984366/... 2: https://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/13/ban-on-advertising-to-children-linked-to-lower-obesity-rates/ https://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/13/ban-on-advert...
  - sorenjan 8y ago
    > It's worth $800 million because someone was willing to buy it for $800 million. Obviously I meant that I can't see how they'd get $800 million of value from their purchase. Thank you for your lesson in market value though. > What's immoral about it? Children aren't equipped to separate fiction from reality, so they aren't as critical about what they're told as adults are. Plus they rarely have much money of their own, so advertisers use the children's "pester power" [0] to get the parents to buy stuff. > You sound like people saying kids shouldn't be taught about sex education, learn about violent news, etc. No I don't. That's learning about real life issues to equip you for the future. Ads are people trying to take advantage of you for their own profit. Don't compare commercials with information. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pester_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pester_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising_to_children https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising_to_children

sorenjan 8y ago

I can't see how it's worth close to $800 million either. Besides the icky sexualized content, isn't ads to kids illegal in most countries? How are you going to monetize that market? And even if it's legal, how moral is it?

fspeech 8y ago
All I could say is that if there were a clear way for monetizing their user base musical.ly would not have been sold for that price. But it is not very relevant to Bytedance's valuation or main businesses either way.
- echevil 8y ago
  musical.ly never had the same level of success TikTok now has, and it probably hasn’t focused on monetization at the time it was sold. Plus Bytedance owns quite a few apps many of which are extremely popular
qubax 8y ago
> I can't see how it's worth close to $800 million either. It's worth $800 million because someone was willing to buy it for $800 million. Why is anything worth anything? Because someone is willing to pay for it. > isn't ads to kids illegal in most countries? What? Then how does nickelodean, toys stores, kids clothes store, etc exist? I can assure you that ads to kids are most definitely legal in most countries. We have back-to-school sales and of course we have christmas. > And even if it's legal, how moral is it? What's immoral about it? Targetting adult specific ( cigarettes, alcohol ) to kids shouldn't be allowed, but what's immoral about targeting age specific products to kids? You sound like people saying kids shouldn't be taught about sex education, learn about violent news, etc. Kids and everyone should be taught about ads and adults should help kids deal with ads because ads are a part of life and they are going to have to deal with it eventually. Rather than ads themselves, I think the lack of educating kids about ads is the problem. But lots of backwards controlling parents want to keep children uninformed and naive and ill prepared for real life.
- blacksmith_tb 8y ago
  I'd rather ban it all, but the idea that advertising targeted at children should be banned for various reasons[1][2] is not especially obscure. 1: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9984366/Ban-advertising-aimed-at-primary-school-children.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9984366/... 2: https://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/13/ban-on-advertising-to-children-linked-to-lower-obesity-rates/ https://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/13/ban-on-advert...
- sorenjan 8y ago
  > It's worth $800 million because someone was willing to buy it for $800 million. Obviously I meant that I can't see how they'd get $800 million of value from their purchase. Thank you for your lesson in market value though. > What's immoral about it? Children aren't equipped to separate fiction from reality, so they aren't as critical about what they're told as adults are. Plus they rarely have much money of their own, so advertisers use the children's "pester power" [0] to get the parents to buy stuff. > You sound like people saying kids shouldn't be taught about sex education, learn about violent news, etc. No I don't. That's learning about real life issues to equip you for the future. Ads are people trying to take advantage of you for their own profit. Don't compare commercials with information. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pester_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pester_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising_to_children https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising_to_children