TikTok Is Coming for eBay - DTNS 5143

0:03this is the daily tech news for monday november 10th 2025 we tell you what you need to know give you some important context and help each other understand today can tick tock match ebay with shopping in the us i'm tom and i'm rob dunwood let's start with what you need to know with that big story

0:26there's an analytics firm out there called echo tick uh that pulled price and sales volumes of individual products on the tick tock shop so that's stuff you can see anybody can see that stuff but it did it on a massive scale so that it could estimate that TikTok shop sold about$19 billion worth of products worldwide from July through September. Now, Music Ally points out that EchoTik's business is to provide analytics and other tools to creators. So, you know, if they can show the TikTok shop is booming, that's probably better for its business as well. but these numbers are checkable. They seem to be rather reliable and that would make U.S.

1:12the largest market for TikTok shop. Now, if you're like, hey, U.S. bigger than China? No, TikTok doesn't operate in China. Duyen operates in China. It's pretty much the same thing as TikTok, but it's a separate app. So that is not included in here. So we leave China out, U.S. becomes the largest market for TikTok shop. And U.S. made four to four and a half billion dollars of that 19 billion dollars. That's a rise of 125 percent from the previous quarter. The next markets after it are Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines. Those are smaller markets, though. So you lump all four of those together, they're actually bigger than the U.S.

1:51And that's important to keep in mind as we look at these numbers. By comparison, TikTok shop's 19 billion dollars is right on the heels of eBay, which did$20.1 billion worldwide sales in the same quarter. Now, one of the biggest drivers of shopping on TikTok, especially in those Southeast Asian markets, and certainly in mainland China on Douyan, is live streaming. Live streaming shopping in China is a whole other world. You have the equivalent of mainland Chinese celebrities to Taylor Swift and Beyonce showing up on live stream shopping in China. They have comedians, they have variety shows. It is a much bigger deal than what you think of in the US, which is QVC.

2:33So it has made slow progress in the US because Beyonce is not going to go on a TikTok live stream, not for the amount of money they're going to pay her. However, it is one of ByteDance's main revenue generators in mainland China. Live stream e-commerce accounts for around 50 % of Duyen's traffic. Total shopping is only 20 % of U.S. traffic. And that's not live. That's just total shopping on U.S. TikTok. Live is a smaller percentage of that. About one out of 10 of the 20 % who do shopping do it from live. Nevertheless, TikTok told Wired that TikTok shop live shopping sessions were rising up 72 % year over year in September and that sales are up 120 % year over year in June.

3:18When you're coming from a smaller number, you can get those bigger percentage rises, but still it's significant when you got$19 billion in sales. It looks like in the US, TikTok is taking a more social media versus live tactic. And Rob, they're kind of gaining some results. They're gaining significant results. I knew the TikTok shop was big here in the US. I didn't know that it rivaled eBay. That's, that's maybe because I'm born in the seventies. When I think of like an online shop where you go and buy stuff that regular people are selling eBay, it's the first place that I think of. But I would, I would venture that if you're born probably in the nineties or later that TikTok shop or even, you know, even like, you know, Facebook marketplace, you probably think of those places first, but for this to be rivaling eBay and I had no clue, I knew it was big.

4:09I didn't know it was that big. Yeah. And I think in the broadest sense, those are comparable, but you go to eBay for different reasons. You go to eBay often to find used things or discounted items. Whereas you're going to TikTok, you are possibly not shopping for a particular thing. You're just shopping, quote unquote, right? You're seeing what people are talking about. Or you've got a broad idea of like, I need a clothing steamer, but what's the best one? Let me look on TikTok and see what people are saying. I see one in action. I can tell it works because it's on the video and then I buy it.

4:47There was in the Wired article on this, an anecdote of somebody who bought one on Amazon, then saw one on TikTok that looked better, bought it from TikTok shop and returned the one on Amazon because it did work better. I do feel like those live streams, it's gonna be a long time before TikTok shop live streams can catch on in the US in a manner that can bring in the celebrity power and entertainment value that they have in mainland China. But these more small-scale influencer-led videos do seem to be catching on. Yeah. So I don't think it's for a lack of trying. I think that TikTok would love to do what it's doing in China here.

5:26But what I do see picking up is just influencers, not necessarily the biggest stars not not the Beyonce's not the Taylor Swift of the world yeah big streamer the person that has the the makeup channel that does hauls and they say oh I want to go do a haul over here on on TikTok or even tech uh you know reviewers they will do the short you know tech reviews on TikTok you're starting to see more and more of that so will it catch what is happening with Duyuan in China anytime in the near future no I don't think so because we just roll a little different and they are focusing on social media here but it is something that you know to look at and there's other examples when I think of Amazon like the Amazon influencer program right now is is actually really on the rise a lot of people are getting over there and making actual content to go on to that site to sell stuff and I think you're going to see the same thing start to happen here once the creators are right oh I can make a couple extra hundred dollars a month if I just talk about this in TikTok as compared to on Instagram or you know on my you know YouTube channel or what have you.

6:26Yeah, it does seem like a lot of the if if you see a live stream being successful, it is something like Lububu's or something from China, where, where there's maybe not as much competition for that, or it's more endemic to it. But it, but if if you're looking at what's succeeding in the US, it's a different market, it's a different aesthetic. And that influencer led content, you're right, not just successful on TikTok, it's also successful on Amazon, it's even getting successful on YouTube and Instagram. Instagram has a whole shopping program. So it does feel like that's the way it's going to rise here.

7:00And of course, that brings us to the ever-present question over TikTok, which I know the can's been kicked down the road to January now, but we still haven't heard the definitive like, okay, here's what's going to happen to TikTok in the United States. Meanwhile, its revenue and its importance to the economy keeps growing. I do wonder as well, because if I'm ByteDance at this point, it's like, let's just keep doing what we're doing and keep kicking this can down the road, proverbially, as you just said, because why change if you don't have to? I think something eventually is going to happen, but eventually could be a very, very long time from now.

7:37And even if something does happen in January, it's not like that's going to be U.S. TikTok in January. We still could be six months, a year out before we actually see something running here. And I know a big concern for a lot of creators on TikTok is that, well, what happens to TikTok shop? That doesn't come to the U.S. That's still a ByteDance type of thing. So how does that, how do those waters get navigated? I don't know that that's been figured out yet. Yeah, the things that I've read, and like you say, nothing has been definitive. So this could change or the reporting could be, you know, off base.

8:08But what I've read is that sales of advertising and TikTok shop will continue to be run by ByteDance. It's the algorithm. It's the recommendations. It's the hosting of the personal data that would be moved to a U.S. company. But it sounds like what they would like to do is just move all that back-end stuff and then leave everything else the same so the TikTok shop keeps rolling along, makes a bunch of revenue, and that new U.S. company gets a cut of that. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see. That's what we're being told. But we have to actually see this stuff put into implementation. and actually work.

8:45And the thing that I would imagine that anyone involved in US TikTok is thinking right now, whatever we do, we cannot interrupt what people already do because we know that people are fickle. If it doesn't feel like TikTok, they'll go do something different. And that really worries still a lot of people who are selling on TikTok shop. They're worried about, are we going to lose Americans because they decide to go do something different? Yeah. And we still haven't heard a peep out of China on what's going to happen here. So, So, you know, clock's ticking and talking. DTNest is made possible by you, the listener, thanks to Jeffrey Zilks, Alo, Adam L., Philip Less, and our new patrons, Paul and Sandeep.

9:23Hey, welcome, Paul and Sandeep. Good to have you.

9:29There's more we need to know today. Let's get to the briefs. Amazon Prime Video has a series called House of David, which shows the story of the rise of the King David in 1000 BC and opened season two with the slaying of Goliath. A studio called Wonder Project is producing the series. It has used generative models for 350 to 400 visual effects shots this season. And that's about four times what it used last season. Wonder Project says it's used the tech for crowd replication and scenery, including some fortresses, hillside fires and misty mountains. Wunder says it used models from Runway, Google, Adobe, and Luma.

10:05Luma makes ray tracing generation software Ray 3 with Adobe. The tools worked in a pipeline that would stack images and res up them with up to 15 programs working at once in some cases. Yeah, it seems like this is an example of a smaller studio with a dedicated audience being able to work within the rules. Nobody's accusing anybody of breaking any of the SAG-AFTRA rules that were negotiated about likenesses and training. but maybe working outside the opinion, because inside of Hollywood, the opinion is we don't like AI. We want the studios to use it as little as possible. But here you have a company that's like, hey, you know what?

10:47It made our video better. It made our offering better. And we didn't have to break the bank to do it. Yeah, this is where I think the studios are in between a rock and a hard place. They do not want to lose the industry, the people who are working in the industry. But I don't even want to say that it's a uniquely American thing. This is this is a thing kind of globally. But you can go somewhere else because the laws are different. There are the rules are different there with unions and such that it's way less expensive to create content someplace else than it is to create content here. That is ultimately going to have to be wrestled with because I don't see this going away.

11:29I don't see a time when companies are going to say, let's be less productive than we can be. Let's spend more money than we need to. Some might, but most won't. So this is something that's going to ultimately have to get figured out and have to be addressed. Wonder projects here in the United States, working within the rules, saving money. I can tell you for sure there are a bunch of studios in Los Angeles that are catering to small-time creators saying, hey, we can give you some AI magic in your videos, especially if you're doing fictional dramatizations and stuff like that. So this is happening, whether the big studios and the critics that they employ want it to or not.

12:09And you got some big names out there. Vince Gilligan just did an interview related to his show Pluribus, expressing his skepticism about whether these kinds of models can really improve things. Guillermo del Toro, who's doing Frankenstein for Netflix, has been very stridently anti-AI, saying that he thinks it's an abomination and things like that. So, yeah, there's a lot of big names and big studios that are resisting this. But you got a lot of little folks willing to take a gamble on it because it improves things. And Amazon getting a lot of views out of House of David, I'll tell you that. I've seen not the entire first season, but I've seen a few episodes and it's entertaining.

12:52And if you wouldn't have told me that they used AI, I wouldn't have known it. It was just, it was something that I never thought about. And I think that that is the rub. Are we going to get to the point to where a lot of people just don't think about it? Because there are definitely some who simply will. I'm not watching that because AI was used to create it. And that's just, that's their stand. But there's a lot of other folks who they didn't know AI was being used to make it in the first place and just saw something that they enjoyed and intended to watch it. And although I am aware of it and I don't particularly care for it, I understand that it's content and it's good content and it's going to be made regardless of what we want the rules to be.

13:28Yeah, and it's going to keep getting better, right? It's going to keep getting harder to tell when it was used. Speaking of the halo effect of all this stuff, TSMC reported a 16.9 % rise in sales last quarter. Now, it's double-digit growth. You might say, like, that sounds great. but it is the slowest growth for TSMC, which has been going gangbusters, since February 2024. Now, it's still met analyst expectations. So you might see headlines on this that seem to contradict each other. One outlet's going to go with like TSMC disappoints, is AI slowing? Others are going to say TSMC meets analyst expectations and projects strong growth continuing.

14:08Those are all true. It's just you can only fit one in the headline. So you're trying to decide which tactic you're going to take to bring in the readers. The analysts expected a seasonal slowing, and that's what's attributed to this. If there is a softening in demand for chips, you're going to see it in next quarter sales. So if you are concerned about this, look at TSMC's next quarterly report. And if they don't meet or beat expectations that time, then this was a harbinger of something bad. But TSMC says capacity remains tight. They are still trying to do everything they can to meet demand. Tom, I remember a time, long, long, long time ago, like two, three years ago, when you actually meeting your analyst expectations was seen as a good thing.

14:54You definitely didn't want to not meet the expectations, but you didn't also want to be 20, 30 % ahead of what the expectations were. And you didn't want to do that repeatedly. If it was an outlier, that was one thing. But if it was like a regular thing, that was viewed as bad because you didn't give your investors the opportunity to invest the way they would have if they would have known or at least had a good idea that the price was going to go up. So it's just interesting to me that TSMC on paper three years ago had a ridiculous quarter. They met the expectations. They did what they said they were going to do.

15:27The things that they said were going to happen actually happened. They called it, and half the market is upset about it. It's an interesting time to worry. Yeah, because everybody's worried about a bubble. you know and when and if you're convinced there is anything happening you're going to look for evidence of it and the people who are convinced there's a bubble look at a slowing growth and say ah there it is there's the evidence whereas tsmc's going like no you and all the analysts knew that we were going to have a seasonally slower quarter that yeah it was going to be as slow as it was in 2024 that's only three that's only last year you know uh so uh so don't fret too much about it.

16:06And like I said, I'm not saying there isn't a bubble or there isn't slowing coming, but this is not evidence of it. This, this is not evidence of it because TSMC, they told you what was going to happen and what happened actually is what they told you. Um, I don't know what else the company could actually do except for what, you know, here's what we think is going to happen. Let's have 20 % better than that actually happened. That is not, that's not sustainable. That, That indicates a bubble to me to when it just, you keep missing and it seems like you're sandbagging after a quarter or two of that happening.

16:38Yeah. And like you said, it's a great point that I hadn't even thought of today, which is if you continually over, you know, beat expectations by too much, it means you're not giving your investors proper information. Right. Monday is always the day we talk about whatever Apple leaks the Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has published in his Sunday Power One newsletter. He knows that Apple is working on additional features that are powered by satellite connectivity, bypassing carriers. That includes 5G NTN, which supplements 5G service with satellites, satellite connectivity options for app makers, satellite powered Apple Maps, rich messaging like photos and easier usage so you don't have to point your phone to the sky.

17:15But grabbing more attention is a post from Weibo's digital chat station, which claims Apple's underscreen camera is on track to arrive in 2027. Now, German's out there probably going like, I wrote about that, too. I just didn't write about it this week. I like to kind of look at Gurman's rumors now, or his leaks, I would say. They're not really rumors. They're things that he's finding out from inside. And evaluate whether they're worth the hype, because it seems like he's very smart to publish these on Sunday, knowing that Monday news is always a little slower and it'll get pickup. but you know different weeks have different levels of revelation to them I think the idea that Apple is making progress on connecting directly to satellites which bypasses carrier is an interesting thing to watch these features could be interesting as well they are not an indication that that is making fast progress but it means Apple's still working on them so that's how I take that whereas Weibo going like that underscreen camera it's on track to arrive in 2027 that tells me digital chat station very good at reading the tea leaves of what will be picked up by seo okay because that would rocketed to the top of all the sources i look at absolutely a a story about well here's a new iphone and there's no camera button there's no camera hole it's just it's just all screen until you take the picture and then it's just just magic and cool that is going to play more because we want to start thinking about the satellite connectivity in a couple of years as just connectivity.

18:42When's the last time we had big stories about, ooh, we've got 5G on these phones. It's like, yeah, that's just how phones connect to each other. It's not really a big thing. But something new, something that I can see with my eyeballs that, oh, I don't see a camera notch, that is big news. And that's exactly why I grabbed the attention today. It's something you can imagine. It's something you want to see. It's something Android phones already have to a certain extent. But LG is working on some better technology to make it work even better. And apparently that's what Apple is possibly taking advantage of here.

19:13So yeah, it excites the imagination. Denmark and Norway public transit providers are investigating reports that there are kill switches in the chips used on buses made by China's Yutong. Yutong is the world's largest manufacturer of buses. I take a little exception to calling these kill switches. Jepa Gard, chief operating officer of the Danish public transport provider, Movia, told NBC that over-the-air firmware update capability, in other words, these buses have software and systems that you can push an update to over the air, you don't have to go plug them into anything to update the firmware, means that the buses can be, and I quote, stopped remotely either by the manufacturer or by a hacker.

20:01He said this is not just a concern for Chinese-made buses, but for all buses that are made with updatable software. Norway's bus operator Ruter performed tests on two Yutong models and one Dutch model. They were able to stop the Yutong models, though they could not remotely operate them. They couldn't stop the Dutch model because it didn't have over-the-air updates. Yutong notes that the vehicle data for EU operators is stored on AWS in Frankfurt, Germany. It's encrypted that you cannot access it without customer authorization. So when they push an over-the-air update, somebody at the operator of the bus has to approve it to go to the buses.

20:41However, the UK has picked up this story and is now investigating its Utah-made buses as well. Thanks to RWNash for submitting this one on the subreddit. But Rob, this feels a little like people who run buses discovered what over-the-air updates are capable of. So this is where the headline was written to get people to say, oh, look at that. We could create a headline that says Apple pushes out an update that could turn off your iPhone. Yeah. They absolutely can. They do it several times a quarter when they update. I think we're at iOS, not just iOS, but we're at Apple OS. All of them are 26.1 right now.

21:2326.2, they could literally put something in there by intention or by omission. You know, they did something getting tested, something got past someone. They could literally turn your phone off. But we don't think of it like that when it comes to phones. But when it comes to buses, when it comes to these things that are mass transportation, I think we're thinking to, you know, movies like Speed and things where there are car chases to where the, you know, the hacker was able to hit the kill switch on the car carrying all the money on the armored car. And that's how they were able to get up to it and rob it and have this giant heist.

21:56that's what we think about but it really is just if you allow something to over the air be updated there is a potential that the update could cause the thing to stop working as intended that's always going to be there for the history of things being updated over the air and could theoretically either utang itself or uh the or a malicious actor uh push an update at a bus in order to try to get it to malfunction and stop? Yes, that can also happen to your cars. That can happen to anything, potentially. The question isn't, can it happen? The question is, how likely is it to happen? And what Utah is saying is, not bloody likely, but you should investigate and make sure that you can keep it from happening.

22:45And most of the security professionals that have been interviewed for these stories have said the same thing, which is like, yeah, sure, it's possible. But if you're and that's why it's important to secure these systems to make it unlikely that it would happen. But there's nothing there's no kill switch. There's there's this idea that there's someone in China that could press a button and all the buses in Norway stop. That's not how this works. This is just a capability that every over the air system is subject to. And I think folks are getting a little out of hand on that, maybe because they're overthinking, maybe because they have a propaganda goal.

23:25But it is interesting to see this come out of Scandinavia, where you usually don't see the more sensational things come from. I think something that would be as sensational, maybe even less sensational, would be Don Cheadle speaking in a British accent, driving a white van with a big piece of tech that has liquid in it for some reason. next to the bus and firing something off in the van kind of implodes, but the bus also stops. I think that that is as likely to happen as someone actually having a kill switch that says, we've got a button, we can make this bus stop. So it's, it's, if you allow something to be updated over the air, there's just going to be the potential that, you know, bad firmware, something could happen is generally not going to be a malicious actor.

24:12Well, it could be a hacker trying to do something maliciously, but it's not going to be the company that created it, trying to wreck their business model. There's no good to the company putting a kill switch in their devices because they would never sell those devices any longer if that came to life. Yeah, no, that's the ultimate point for the business side of this. And then on the malicious actor side, that's why you need to make sure that you are using secure systems and your encryption is strong and your phishing protections are strong and all of that. But that's true of every single system we operate these days.

24:43All right, finally, some quick headlines that are just good to know. If you want to understand the news in the future, pay attention to these. Political obtained draft documents that indicate the European Commission will unveil a digital omnibus package of bills on November 19th, which would, among other things, grant exemptions to companies to use personal data to train models. Set your clock for November 19th for when everyone gets even more outraged about this in europe uh u.s video sharing and cloud service provider rumble has agreed to acquire german data infrastructure company northern data and notably cryptocurrency company tether is an investor in both of those companies as well as a customer coinbase is launching a platform to let individuals buy digital tokens before they are listed as an ICO on Coinbase's exchange platform.

25:33Ooh, the return of ICO buzz. On the Made by Google podcast, Gemini product manager David Sharon revealed why they called Gemini 2.5 flash image Nano Banana. Apparently, it's because it was late at night and they needed to come up with a name to submit it anonymously to LM Arena because they didn't want to admit it was Gemini at the time. So a product manager named Nina came up with it. Who knows why? But there you go. So here's the thing. that happens so often in product management they don't know what to call it so they'll just make a name up right there on the something came into nina's and that's that's what it is oneplus is rolling out android 16 to its foldable open phones with oxygen os 16 on top as promised china's commerce ministry announced sunday that as of november 27th it is suspending its ban on exporting gallium germanium antimony and graphite to the united states that ban is over I always thought that was called antimony.

26:29Oh, yeah, maybe it is. Let me know if I'm saying it wrong. Just in my head. And as the character street between Disney and YouTube TV continues, YouTube TV has increased the rebate to customers that they can apply for from$10 to$20. Check your email for instructions. Credits will be issued on November 12th. Oh, that one stretches on. Monday Night Football's coming. Well, folks, if you're looking for the perfect gift for the DTNS fan in your life, or maybe for yourself, you know, you deserve a gift. Just give yourself a gift. You can look at dailytechnewsshow.com slash store. We have a new DTNS pint glass in there, currently being road tested by R.W.

27:08Nash. There's Tom's new e-book, my new e-book, Synced. Know a little more about tech as a PDF. And holiday cards, postcards, and more with special DTNS holiday art by Len Peralta. It's a Santa Claus with some drones pulling the sleigh, and he's got an Apple Vision Pro on his face. You want to take a look at that. If no other reason, go to dailytechnewsshow.com.

27:37We end every episode of DTNS with some shared wisdom. Last week, Mel asked how data centers in space would handle cooling. Today, T.O. has an answer. Yeah, so T.O. writes, regarding how the space data centers or space station radiate heat out into space, not all heat transfer happens through physical contact. Heat can also radiate as light. Imagine the heat from a campfire. Even with most of the gas rising up and taking a lot of the heat with it, some of the energy is also radiated in the infrared spectrum. Now keep imagining the campfire. Crackling, calm breeze, in contrast to the radiating warmth of the fire.

28:17Take a breath and enjoy the calm. Thanks for an amazing show. Thank you, T.O., for that poetic explanation of how you can cool things in space. I definitely appreciate that. I'm just waiting for the movie where we have Gerard Butler starring in it, where we're building space stations full of these data centers, and he's got to save Earth somehow. I just, that's what I imagine when I think of data centers in space. Absolutely. Absolutely. What are you thinking about? Got some insights into a story shared with us at feedback at dailytechnewsshow.com. Big thanks to T.O. for contributing to today's show.

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29:11the DTNS family of podcasts helping each other understand Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this program