TikTok Shutdown – Why Building on Proprietary Platforms is a Risky Game

As TikTok is being pulled from under millions of content creators, I sincerely hope this will be the last straw for us to finally learn our lesson.

Building anything of value around a proprietary platform is very risky. Whether it’s a software application, a brand, or anything that you can categorize as a major revenue source, should be owned and hosted by yourself. Platforms that you have no control over can disappear overnight, or change in ways that would make it impossible to continue using them in ways you’ve anticipated. History shows this happens constantly.

Recent Examples of Platform Changes that Hurt their Creators

Twitter API Price Hike

Remember when Twitter (still not calling it x, nope) raised its API prices from free and affordable tiers to $100.00 – $5,000.00 per month? This made it prohibitively expensive for smaller developers, startups, and even some established businesses to maintain their apps and services.

Shopify Removing Dropshipping Apps

Shopify has occasionally banned or removed apps and services that violate their rules or compete with Shopify’s own offerings.

Etsy Fee Increases and Policy Changes

Etsy raised transaction and advertising fees while requiring sellers to participate in its Offsite Ads program. Small sellers complained that the fees ate into already-thin margins, forcing some to leave the platform.

eBay Fee Increases and Policy Changes

eBay increased seller fees and implemented new policies (example: holding payments) that affected small sellers, causing these to struggle to remain profitable.

Steps to Protect your Brand

These examples highlight the risk of over-relying on a single platform that you have no control over. Owning critical data is vital to mitigating such risks. Of course, proprietary platforms can and definitely should be utilized to build brand recognition, but the ultimate goal should be striving to migrate your audience off the proprietary platform to space you own and control.

Build and Own a Website

A self-hosted website gives you complete control over your content and audience.

Start a Blog

A blog allows you to grow an audience and drive organic traffic to your website without relying solely on social media platforms.

Build an Email List

Email lists give you direct access to your audience without depending on a platform’s algorithm. A mailing list is the natural extension of any business, niche blog or creator with an audience that wants to hear from them.

Diversify Content Distribution

Post content on multiple social media channels, but always drive traffic back to your own website, blog or email list.

Use Open Source / Decentralized Platforms

Bluesky, Mastodon, Diaspora come to mind. Anything that is not a proprietary platform owned by a profit driven corporation.