But that's not at all how things have worked out, even here within the US. Waze does not compete with Google Maps. WhatsApp and Instagram do compete with Facebook, each of these companies were simply acquired. We've learned that new social media companies have a very hard time spinning up the network effects required to make them prominent, and in the rare cases they do, they quickly get bought out or their products cloned by incumbents. There's an excellent chance this would have happened in China without state intervention.

The most prominent recent exception to this rule is TikTok, which spun out of an already-successful Chinese tech company. Its owners resisted acquisition until legislation forced their hand.