Why does Byte deny “byte time”?

However, in the face of this high criticism, Li Liang, vice president of Douyin Group, issued a rebuttal. To the effect thatThe term “byte time” is inaccurate. The industry is diverse and there are still many shortcomings in bytes. Then it was hinted that Qin Shuo was instructed by Tencent to write this article.

This reaction is more worthy of consideration than Qin Shuo’s hat.

When a company is really booming, it usually doesn’t jump out and say“I can’t”.

We think that Li Liang is so eager to give“Byte time” has cooled down, not because the bytes are not qualified, but precisely because the bytes are too qualified:

He was so qualified that he realized that if he took another step forward, he would be the first to shoot.

What Byte is afraid of is not Tencent, but a big tree that attracts the wind.

In fact, anyThe core reason why APP can become popular is to capture young people.

The core of Tencent’s user base is young people.QQ is from the student days, WeChat is from the workplace, and games are a form of entertainment mainly for young people.

However, the penetration rate of byte-based products can be seen with the naked eye, covering the entire population from young people.

Wu Xiangjun’s hometown is in a county-level city. The most intuitive feeling every time I go back is: regardless of urban or rural areas, almost all age groups are brushing bytes.App – Douyin, Hongguo.

Children in their teens use TikTok to watch cartoon clips, young people in their twenties use TikTok to watch beauties and jokes, taxi drivers and street vendors just buy a mobile phone holder, and they can spend the whole day watching short dramas.

No product from Tencent can achieve this level of penetration and addiction.

Even though WeChat has a wide penetration rate, we know that WeChat is“Use and go” tools. Douyin and Hongguo are time black holes that “can’t get out” if they are opened.

In this current era,The business of “killing time” is far greater than the business of “saving time”.

It’s not that Tencent didn’t see this.

Therefore, in the past few years, the high-profile support for video accounts was essentially to take it back from Byte.Time to “brush content”.

However, video accounts mainly consume the time originally occupied by public accounts and Moments within WeChat, not the time of Douyin.

So far, there has been no case of people actually being snatched away from Byte.

Not to mention Tencent Video, I was fucked to death by Hongguo,168 million daily active users exceeds the sum of the four major long-form video platforms. When this number came out, many people in the industry were silent.

The average daily usage time of Hongguoyue has exceeded that of Aiyu Tengmang

So, why is Byte so powerful?

In fact, this answer is very clear to many Internet people. Byte’s organizational and operational capabilities are unparalleled.

Every time a new project is launched, the basic experience can be brought to the forefront of the industry, almost no matter whatWhich APP is popular, and then use Douyin, a national-level app, to divert traffic.

Whether it’s tomatoes, red fruits, bean bags, or now DouShengSheng, soda music, almost all rely on Douyin“Milk”.

I believe that everyone who has used Douyin deeply has experienced firsthand what it means“Byte-style saturation delivery”, every time you watch ten videos, you will encounter ads for new Byte-based apps at least twice, and the download entrance is also embedded in the video stream.

抖音With 800 million monthly active users, this is a cold start capability that no other Internet company has.

But Tencent cannot. Its problem is that its products are separated from each other.

The video account has traffic, but the video account is unwilling to divert traffic to Tencent Video; Tencent Video has content, but the content and the ecology of the video account are not connected; WeChat has mini programs, but the mini programs are“Each one fights on its own” and there is no unified official entrance.

Several of Tencent’s products are like feudal lords, while all of Byte’s products are like an army.

Teams that have made competing products at the same time as Byte should all have a lot of bitterness.——Byte can unscrupulously divert traffic to its products on Douyin, but if competing products want to buy volume on Douyin, the prices are getting more expensive year by year, and the restrictions are increasing year by year.

Tencent is aware of this situation, but it is difficult to fight back.

Because neither Tencent’s internal culture nor their style of play have ever been so wolfish.

Zhang Yiming once concluded:“Delayed gratification and a determined farewell to laziness are the reasons for his success.”

But his products attack these two human weaknesses.

Byte products, from Douyin to Hongguo to Tomato, are all doing the same thing:

There is an unlimited supply of content, so users can never finish it. Short videos come one after another, skits automatically play the next one after one, and novels automatically load the next chapter after one.

There is no end point, no stop prompt.

Every time someone outside mentions this, Byte’s response is always“Good content” counterattacks, as if everything is just the natural choice of users, and the platform does not make any intervention.

But if you deeply understand the mechanism of the recommendation algorithm, you will know that this is not“Natural selection” can explain it.

The biggest function of the algorithm is not to pick out your favorite high-quality content. What’s really clever about it is that it can calculate when users will churn, and then stuff you with as much new content and ads as possible before the users become impatient.

In recent years, many academic papers have discussed this issue, and legal cases have also begun to intervene. This yearMeta was fined $18 billion in the United States for “using addictive product designs to induce minors to become addicted.” The EU also has corresponding restrictions on TikTok, which is not groundless.

But so far, there seems to be no constraint with social influence in China.

This is also why Byte responded to Nomura’s report (saying that Byte accounted for40% of Internet time) reacted so fiercely, they desperately wanted to push Tencent out and prove that they were not the big brother who “killed time”.

但誰是The big brother of “killing time”, users know it well, and the data does not lie.

In August 2026, Hongguo was already the fourth-most-used App in China, second only to Douyin, WeChat and Douyin Express.

If Hongguo rises to third place at the current growth rate before the end of the year, then Byte will account for three of the top five. One company took away the three most time-consuming products for Chinese usersAPP, don’t you know how good you are?

So, what are Xiaobyte afraid of after having seen all the mountains?

In fact, it is the direction of supervision.

Once the label of “killing time” is targeted by regulators, it will be a systemic risk.

Although there is currently no byte-specific regulations in China,“Addictive design” imposes substantial constraints, but the trend is already changing.

Regarding the protection of minors, the prevention of addiction, and the regulation of algorithm recommendation mechanisms, the attitude of regulators has become increasingly clear. And bytes asThe “national-level time killer” is destined to be the focus of attention.

Qin Shuo’s article was, to some extent, helping Byte“Wear a high hat.” Bytes are sensitive because they know better than anyone else:

Whoever sits in that position will be the first person responsible for the backlash in the future.

Meta was fined US$18 billion and the EU imposed restrictions on TikTok. It is impossible for Byte to be aware of these international cases. So they desperately wanted to tell a new story—AI.

字節對The investment in AI can no longer be described as “all in”, but more like some kind of urgent self-rescue.

From a business logic point of view,AI is indeed the “atonement” that Byte must make:

一方面，AI can open up a new growth curve that does not rely on user attention;

on the other hand,AI represents the most positive and glamorous part of the “technology company narrative” and is far more imaginative than the “content recommendation platform”.

So Byte is willing to talk aboutThe story of AI is also more willing to let the outside world see their investment in AI.

Ironically, ByteThe current largest source of revenue on the AI ​​side is Seedance – an AI video generation model. The biggest application scenario of Seedance is precisely the production of AI short dramas.

In other words, bytesThe most profitable business of AI ultimately returns to the cycle of “helping people produce content faster and allowing more people to spend more time.”

用AI has brought down the production cost of short dramas, allowing more producers to flock to Hongguo and Douyin, and retaining users’ time longer. The role AI plays here is a tool to make time business more efficient.

How terrible is this closed loop? Let’s do some math:

一部The production cost of AI short dramas has dropped from hundreds of thousands to tens or even thousands, and the supply has increased exponentially. In the first eight months of 2026, there will be approximately 430,000 micro-short dramas online across the country, with AI accounting for over 90%.

The lower the production cost, the more abundant the content supply, and the more valuable the platform’s distribution rights are.——Because what users can see are always the few movies pushed to them by the platform.

AI has lowered the threshold for content production, allowing more producers to pour in, but the real money is always made by the platform with distribution rights.

字節怕“A big tree attracts the wind” is really scary.

But being afraid does not mean that you will stop, let alone that you will converge. Byte’s gene is growth, and it relies on efficiency to crush all opponents.

As long as Douyin’s traffic engine is still running, as long as Hongguo, Tomato,PineDrama’s user duration is still growing, and Byte will not take the initiative to put on the brakes.

The only thing it can do is to keep its posture as low as possible and use as much energy as possibleThe identity of “AI company” is used to hedge against the negative narrative of “time killer” and try to focus the public discussion on “technological leadership” rather than “addictive design”.

But the business world never changes the competitive landscape just because one company adjusts its narrative.

Byte’s size is too large to be hidden. Every move it makes will become the focus of industry discussion. Each of its new products will be scrutinized under the microscope. Each of its growth will be seen as further squeezing Tencent and the traditional Internet structure.

The Chinese Internet has never seen a giant that is so powerful yet so unpopular, and there has never been a company like Byte that is both relied upon by everyone and secretly feared by everyone.

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