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I'll never understand why (a) Vine was shut down, and (b) So many Americans are eager to rush out and use a Chinese social network. I suspect (b) can be explai

I'll never understand why (a) Vine was shut down, and (b) So many Americans are eager to rush out and use a Chinese social network. I suspect (b) can be explained primarily through ignorance.

FussyZeus 7y ago
The globe increasingly feels so connected as to make people not question where things like social networks reside. In the mind of average people, until they have a political axe to grind, the Nation is all but obsolete. The only time the idea has any sticking power is when people are concerned about jobs. Other than that, nobody seems to care all that much.
- bcrosby95 7y ago
  It's not about a "political axe", its about being adversely affected by the policies of that nation. Unless other nations began to intrude on their daily life people don't care what those nations do so they may as well not exist. Part of why China has been in the minds of (some) Americans lately is its becoming obvious they are trying to apply their censorious nature to US citizens on US soil, sometimes using US companies. And, yeah, I'm well aware that the US does similar things to other countries. And some people in other countries on this site complain about that too. It doesn't mean they're just grinding some political axe though. Do you think people in Hong Kong and Taiwan feel like nations are "all but obsolete"? South/North Korea? Tibet? Crimea? This idea of nations being obsolete feels like a fairly privileged position.
  - FussyZeus 7y ago
    Oh yes it’s absolutely privileged. Doesn’t make it less true. The GP asked why Americans were so ready to use a Chinese social network. My answer is they don’t care because they don’t think of it as overtly Chinese, and those that do don’t really care unless they have a reason to.
ninth_ant 7y ago
Despite the initial hype, Vine was super niche and stopped growing. After it was bought, it seems the new owners didn’t have the foresight or patience to evolve the product into something with more mainstream appeal.
- kart23 7y ago
  The vine brand still has a lot of value. I think twitter will restart it in a couple years. Vine is pure nostalgia, and I think people will flock if it comes back.
iwantagrinder 7y ago
I'd venture to guess the vast majority don't know it's a Chinese social network
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
wil421 7y ago
I asked my wife’s kid sister, she’s 19 and in college. Her and her boyfriend had no idea about it being Chinese. It was the hot thing at the moment and that’s all they really cared about.
- cabaalis 7y ago
  Don't make the mistake of thinking that the Chinese don't know that. It's long been my opinion that you simply cannot destroy the west without mutually assured destruction, so nukes are out. You can't invade and subsequently operate because Americans will never acquiesce to foreign rule, and we are individually armed. The only way to undo the US/west is to have it undo itself. Seed dissent and promote divisions and hatred among its people. Maybe I was shielded from this as a kid, but it seems these divisions are hatred are sharply on the rise as of late, and it's not outside the realm of possibility this is due to foreign influence via social networks.
  - wil421 7y ago
    Agreed. Authoritarian governments with morally questionable methods were and are better than the West at Humanint and propaganda. Russia and China are two good examples. I recently saw a documentary about North Korea. It was talking about the Clinton talks, NK would study everyone they would speak to. They also knew with an election would change guards and wait to get what they wanted. Foreign adversaries must be loving the divide America has at the moment with our 2 party system. They are also trying to divide us by race, economic class, and create a divide with the police.
    - vkou 7y ago
      > Agreed. Authoritarian governments with morally questionable methods were and are better than the West at Humanint and propaganda. Russia and China are two good examples. I recently saw a documentary about North Korea. It was talking about the Clinton talks, NK would study everyone they would speak to. They also knew with an election would change guards and wait to get what they wanted. Do you think that the US Department of State, or the foreign ministries of any other country of note don't do this sort of thing?
bnt 7y ago
Because Twitter is ignorant of any sign of market opportunity. They had a massive mobile user base, and then they burried the DM functionality deep in the app (this was years ago). Twitter could have become the biggest messaging app before messaging apps were even cool.
__jal 7y ago
A huge swath of the consumer market in physical products is Chinese goods. Why would your average nontechnical, fairly apolitical, non-foreign policy or intelligence news following person draw a distinction? They see a fun app, they play with it. If they're even aware of censorship issues or geopolitical power games, that seems very distant from some app that amuses them for a few minutes a day.
- cartoonworld 7y ago
  This so much. Few consumers know this fact, and fewer care. Everyone knows the stuff they buy is manufactured in China, and the old timers holding weird grudges from the 1970s are long gone. There is no economic incentive for anyone to bring this up at any time during any transaction.
- cwkoss 7y ago
  I'm trying to avoid Chinese manufactured goods where possible. Does anyone know of good online resources for looking up companies which don't have China in their supply chain? I've found sites that do "made in america" generally, but ideally I'd like a site that allows something like "sort by distance to manufacturer" - I'd like to preferentially support businesses proportionally to how geographically local they are. Would also be interested in sites that have some sort of curated directory of companies that have good labor relations, quality controls, environmental impact, etc.
nemothekid 7y ago
Musical.ly, which TikTok parent company acquired for 1B, was far more American (the company was based in Shanghai, but they had more success in the US and rebranded accordingly). I myself had no idea they were Chinese, despite working in the space. I wouldn’t expect any average teen to know they are Chinese either
gok 7y ago
(A) Vine was horribly mismanaged by Twitter. No marketing, no interesting new features, needless attempts to integrate it into Twitter. (B) How would the average consumer know it's Chinese? They totally rebranded it from their mainland product and in fact the social network itself is totally isolated, so you can't even find Chinese people on it.
jarjoura 7y ago
Vine was and still is a failed execution of the idea of short form video clips. Music.ly and by extension, TikTok are actually really fun, well executed products. I don't think it has anything to do with it being made in China or not and suspect kids today do not care.
fivre 7y ago
We should have all gone to Coub, but for some reason Americans don't care for Lukashenko joke videos. Go figure.
Reason077 7y ago
> "I'll never understand why (a) Vine was shut down, and (b) So many Americans are eager to rush out and use a Chinese social network." TikTok is a better app than Vine was. It has far more features (visual effects, etc) and does a good job of making them easy to use. This all translates into better growth and retention. TikTok was also very well marketed. Lots of slick online ads that went straight to their target demographic. I'm not sure if Vine ever knew quite what it wanted to be.

I'll never understand why (a) Vine was shut down, and (b) So many Americans are eager to rush out and use a Chinese social network. I suspect (b) can be explained primarily through ignorance.

FussyZeus 7y ago

The globe increasingly feels so connected as to make people not question where things like social networks reside. In the mind of average people, until they have a political axe to grind, the Nation is all but obsolete. The only time the idea has any sticking power is when people are concerned about jobs. Other than that, nobody seems to care all that much.

bcrosby95 7y ago
It's not about a "political axe", its about being adversely affected by the policies of that nation. Unless other nations began to intrude on their daily life people don't care what those nations do so they may as well not exist. Part of why China has been in the minds of (some) Americans lately is its becoming obvious they are trying to apply their censorious nature to US citizens on US soil, sometimes using US companies. And, yeah, I'm well aware that the US does similar things to other countries. And some people in other countries on this site complain about that too. It doesn't mean they're just grinding some political axe though. Do you think people in Hong Kong and Taiwan feel like nations are "all but obsolete"? South/North Korea? Tibet? Crimea? This idea of nations being obsolete feels like a fairly privileged position.
- FussyZeus 7y ago
  Oh yes it’s absolutely privileged. Doesn’t make it less true. The GP asked why Americans were so ready to use a Chinese social network. My answer is they don’t care because they don’t think of it as overtly Chinese, and those that do don’t really care unless they have a reason to.

ninth_ant 7y ago

Despite the initial hype, Vine was super niche and stopped growing. After it was bought, it seems the new owners didn’t have the foresight or patience to evolve the product into something with more mainstream appeal.

kart23 7y ago
The vine brand still has a lot of value. I think twitter will restart it in a couple years. Vine is pure nostalgia, and I think people will flock if it comes back.

iwantagrinder 7y ago

I'd venture to guess the vast majority don't know it's a Chinese social network

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

wil421 7y ago

I asked my wife’s kid sister, she’s 19 and in college. Her and her boyfriend had no idea about it being Chinese. It was the hot thing at the moment and that’s all they really cared about.

cabaalis 7y ago
Don't make the mistake of thinking that the Chinese don't know that. It's long been my opinion that you simply cannot destroy the west without mutually assured destruction, so nukes are out. You can't invade and subsequently operate because Americans will never acquiesce to foreign rule, and we are individually armed. The only way to undo the US/west is to have it undo itself. Seed dissent and promote divisions and hatred among its people. Maybe I was shielded from this as a kid, but it seems these divisions are hatred are sharply on the rise as of late, and it's not outside the realm of possibility this is due to foreign influence via social networks.
- wil421 7y ago
  Agreed. Authoritarian governments with morally questionable methods were and are better than the West at Humanint and propaganda. Russia and China are two good examples. I recently saw a documentary about North Korea. It was talking about the Clinton talks, NK would study everyone they would speak to. They also knew with an election would change guards and wait to get what they wanted. Foreign adversaries must be loving the divide America has at the moment with our 2 party system. They are also trying to divide us by race, economic class, and create a divide with the police.
  - vkou 7y ago
    > Agreed. Authoritarian governments with morally questionable methods were and are better than the West at Humanint and propaganda. Russia and China are two good examples. I recently saw a documentary about North Korea. It was talking about the Clinton talks, NK would study everyone they would speak to. They also knew with an election would change guards and wait to get what they wanted. Do you think that the US Department of State, or the foreign ministries of any other country of note don't do this sort of thing?

bnt 7y ago

Because Twitter is ignorant of any sign of market opportunity. They had a massive mobile user base, and then they burried the DM functionality deep in the app (this was years ago). Twitter could have become the biggest messaging app before messaging apps were even cool.

__jal 7y ago

A huge swath of the consumer market in physical products is Chinese goods. Why would your average nontechnical, fairly apolitical, non-foreign policy or intelligence news following person draw a distinction? They see a fun app, they play with it. If they're even aware of censorship issues or geopolitical power games, that seems very distant from some app that amuses them for a few minutes a day.

cartoonworld 7y ago
This so much. Few consumers know this fact, and fewer care. Everyone knows the stuff they buy is manufactured in China, and the old timers holding weird grudges from the 1970s are long gone. There is no economic incentive for anyone to bring this up at any time during any transaction.
cwkoss 7y ago
I'm trying to avoid Chinese manufactured goods where possible. Does anyone know of good online resources for looking up companies which don't have China in their supply chain? I've found sites that do "made in america" generally, but ideally I'd like a site that allows something like "sort by distance to manufacturer" - I'd like to preferentially support businesses proportionally to how geographically local they are. Would also be interested in sites that have some sort of curated directory of companies that have good labor relations, quality controls, environmental impact, etc.

nemothekid 7y ago

Musical.ly, which TikTok parent company acquired for 1B, was far more American (the company was based in Shanghai, but they had more success in the US and rebranded accordingly). I myself had no idea they were Chinese, despite working in the space. I wouldn’t expect any average teen to know they are Chinese either

gok 7y ago

(A) Vine was horribly mismanaged by Twitter. No marketing, no interesting new features, needless attempts to integrate it into Twitter. (B) How would the average consumer know it's Chinese? They totally rebranded it from their mainland product and in fact the social network itself is totally isolated, so you can't even find Chinese people on it.

jarjoura 7y ago

Vine was and still is a failed execution of the idea of short form video clips. Music.ly and by extension, TikTok are actually really fun, well executed products. I don't think it has anything to do with it being made in China or not and suspect kids today do not care.

fivre 7y ago

We should have all gone to Coub, but for some reason Americans don't care for Lukashenko joke videos. Go figure.

Reason077 7y ago

> "I'll never understand why (a) Vine was shut down, and (b) So many Americans are eager to rush out and use a Chinese social network." TikTok is a better app than Vine was. It has far more features (visual effects, etc) and does a good job of making them easy to use. This all translates into better growth and retention. TikTok was also very well marketed. Lots of slick online ads that went straight to their target demographic. I'm not sure if Vine ever knew quite what it wanted to be.