New Vine Reboot App Byte: Discrimination As Always
So yesterday a new social media app called Byte officially launched on iOS and Android, but of course, just like most of the US apps, they are not yet available in the 3rd world country where I live (Serbia).
I’m an online entrepreneur who is making money online for 10 years now, and since I’ve started I worked and compete in the US market.
I’m really fed up with this “exclusivity” or whatever you wanna call it, so I decided to make this post in hopes that someone is going to read it and at least think about things that I’m saying.
When I saw that they launched Byte app (Vine clone) I got excited and wanted to download it and get some good username so I hopped onto my phone and searched the play store but I couldn’t find it. I thought at first, of course, they only launched on the iOS and I need to wait for the android version, but then I visited their website and discovered it’s available of both iOS and Android.
So I clicked the link for android version and got welcomed with a pretty known message: “This item isn’t available in your country”.
Stuff like that really makes me angry, because I’m into Social Media Marketing and I’m trying to be competitive from this sh*thole of a country, but things like this really hurt me mentally and financially.
How can I be competitive when I can’t even download the newest app that might become a new trend?
How can I be competitive when all great and short usernames are going to be already in use by the time this app is available in my country?
I’ve searched but I haven’t been able to find out where this app is available and when can I even expect it to be available in my country.
Now I can spoof my location and use a VPN, but some apps are known for decreasing reach and even banning users for using location spoofers, VPNs and proxies.
My only question is: why is this happening and why is it so hard for you to enable people from all over the world to access your app in 2020.
Since I’m pretty angry right now I tweeted about it:
This is what you get when living in a 3rd world country. Always the same s**t — never get new features, apps or anything trendy in this sh*thole. Why don’t we call this #discrimination how can we be competitive @byte_app when we don’t have access!? #3rdworldcountry #Serbia
See Adam Dimitrijevic’s other Tweets
Oh, and I forgot to mention @tiktok_us and their stupid geo-location targeting that’s just a HUGE hassle to bypass. Do you understand that this is #theInternet and there are a lot of people competing in different markets from where they live? It’s called #globalisation FFS https://twitter.com/equalscash/status/1221083588797571078 …
See Adam Dimitrijevic’s other Tweets
There’s a new kid on the block, but unfortunately unavailable in my country…
I guess I will stick to @Instagram & @tiktok_us
Fck that #discrimination and fck your 6.3s looping video app. #salty https://twitter.com/byte_app/status/1220863425498185728 …
today we’re bringing back 6-second looping videos and a new community for people who love them.
See Adam Dimitrijevic’s other Tweets
But unfortunately, I don’t really use twitter much and I have almost no following there so I guess I can’t expect them to respond.
I just wanted to say that things like this area really bad and hurt a lot of people who would potentially use your app to create good original content but if they are going to be able to access the app a few months (few years in Internet time) after everyone else, there’s no really any point trying to compete with already established creators who were just lucky to be at a certain location when you published your app.
I will finish with this: TikTok is taking over the world and I really hope you don’t succeed because of practices like this. Now TikTok also has HUGE problems but I’ll maybe talk about it some other time.
This is one of the main reasons I started this blog, my Youtube journey and this medium account, so I can get some following and actually get some attention when I call out sh*t like this. I know a ton of people facing problems like this and hopefully one day my voice is gonna get heard loud and clear.
