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This algorithm is not for sale

Good morning! This Monday, China wants its say in the TikTok deal, Amazon may be responsible for third-party products, and Medium has some big plans.
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Let's say Microsoft buys TikTok. What does it get for its $20 billion or so? A brand, certainly. An app, for sure. A team, yeah. But the essence of TikTok, the thing that makes it different from Reels or Triller or any other social video app, is the algorithm that seems to know users better than they know themselves. And that, it turns out, may not be for sale.
China has been frustrated for weeks about the way this sale is going down. It's said to be especially irritated by the Trump administration's involvement with the deal.
Every company interested in TikTok ought to be crystal clear on the fact that without its algorithm, TikTok isn't TikTok. It's Google without PageRank, Coke without the secret recipe. It's decidedly unspecial. The recommendation tools are everything, and China clearly knows it.
"We're just platforms!" has been the cry of every tech company of sufficient size over the last few years, and it's both basically true and an extremely convenient way to hide from all the bad things happening on those platforms. The argument has more or less worked for a long time, but it seems to be crumbling.
Amazon is now earnestly seeking to apply the rules to every seller on the internet. "Injured consumers should be able to seek compensation regardless of how a particular online marketplace makes money," the company wrote last week.
In a weird way, this, too, is about China. Most of the "we're just a platform!" argument falls apart when the products being sold come from a country that can't be regulated or punished. Amazon's the only possible responsible party for those kinds of sales, and there needs to be a responsible party.
Did you know Medium is huge? Medium is huge! Ev Williams wrote on Friday that the site has had more than 1.25 billion page views in the last three months, and as a seasoned member of the publishing industry I can tell you that's a pretty good number.
Williams also announced a bunch of upcoming features, a sort of grab-bag of ideas about the future of publishing. More newsletter stuff, simpler paywalls, custom domains. But one thing really stuck out to me:
There's a clear trend here. I've talked to a lot of folks recently about the return of blogging, the rise of Substack, and what it means that people are branching out on their own again. Medium clearly understands the underlying goal behind that trend, which is that creators want a place that feels like it's theirs.
Every Instagram and TikTok profile looks like every other one, but even small things like vanity URLs and header images help someone make their stuff feel more personal. And for Medium, betting on subscriptions — and the relationship between creators and viewers, not just viewers and an algorithm — goes a long way toward making something sticky.
I'd be lying if I said I've always been a Medium believer, but this feels like it's going to work.
Stronger care … from anywhere, to anywhere
A strong healthcare system can scale to meet increasing patient demands. At Philips, we're charting a new way forward by moving care beyond the hospital's walls with advanced virtual health capabilities that expand clinical reach and increase care team capacity.
After Apple rejected a Facebook app update, Mark Zuckerberg went on offense against the App Store:
Patrick Collison predicts a return to semi-normal for tech workers, someday:
Enough with the SPACs, Morgan Stanley's Bennett Schachter said:
Could we actually get a TikTok buyer this week? Some reports say yes. Governments continue to complicate everything. Personally, I'm not holding my breath.
Apple's share split happens today, and analysts are predicting a bump for the stock. Which is good, because Apple could really use the cash, eh.
Zoom announces earnings Monday, which'll be an interesting check on how the company's doing after its COVID boom and all the associated chaos.
On Sunday morning, my wife texted me asking if our internet was down. Well, yes and no: Our internet was fine, but The Internet was in rough shape. An outage at CenturyLink took down services from Cloudflare, AWS, Twitter, Reddit, Hulu and many others, ZDNet reported, and Cloudflare's post-mortem found that the outage caused a 3.5% drop in global internet traffic. Never forget that the internet relies on a shockingly small number of companies (and sometimes a random person in Nebraska), and it's always the dumbest stuff that brings it down.
Stronger care … from anywhere, to anywhere
A strong healthcare system can scale to meet increasing patient demands. At Philips, we're charting a new way forward by moving care beyond the hospital's walls with advanced virtual health capabilities that expand clinical reach and increase care team capacity.
Today's Source Code was written by David Pierce, with help from Shakeel Hashim. Thoughts, questions, tips? Send them to david@protocol.com, or our tips line, tips@protocol.com. Enjoy your day, see you tomorrow.
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