Again, China does not run the company, they just own the leash on the private entrepreneurs who do. That's one of Deng's benefits for implementing capitalism. (mildlyinteresting: the word capitalism isn't capitalized)
China has a massive stake in the company. It's a huge investment for them. Hardly "free"
It's a one-time fee that also earns money back compared to the continuous payments to buy from other sources.
Assuming China doesn't have to spend literally any other money, even though countries are constantly investing in infrastructure and security and material to assist the business.
But also, literally not free. My point stands.
You won't just stop the maintenance if TikTok didn't exist. It's not like all China cares about is data.
Your question was "why would China get data from TikTok when they can just buy it from Meta". If China didn't get the data from ByteDance, ByteDance still incurs the maintenance fee. So no, that is not the expense of getting the data.
Running a company isn't free lol
Again, China does not run the company, they just own the leash on the private entrepreneurs who do. That's one of Deng's benefits for implementing capitalism. (mildlyinteresting: the word capitalism isn't capitalized)
China has a massive stake in the company. It's a huge investment for them. Hardly "free"
It's a one-time fee that also earns money back compared to the continuous payments to buy from other sources.
Assuming China doesn't have to spend literally any other money, even though countries are constantly investing in infrastructure and security and material to assist the business.
But also, literally not free. My point stands.
You won't just stop the maintenance if TikTok didn't exist. It's not like all China cares about is data.
Your question was "why would China get data from TikTok when they can just buy it from Meta". If China didn't get the data from ByteDance, ByteDance still incurs the maintenance fee. So no, that is not the expense of getting the data.