Bo Hu nodded: Simba and Kuaishou, there will be a battle.
Text | Tang Bohu
Following the public shouting "I'm really defeated by capital" in the live broadcast room in April, after more than half a year, Simba really took Kuaishou to court.
In late December, Simba and his apprentice Shi Damei sued Kuaishou, triggering a lot of speculation from the outside world, and Simba, who repeatedly accused the platform of "restricting the flow", really declared war on Kuaishou?
In this regard, Simba's Xinxuan company responded to the media, which is actually a normal process for "network infringement liability disputes", and is not really "suing the platform".
For example, if an account entity on Kuaishou has improper remarks about Simba himself that has infringed his reputation, Kuaishou cannot directly provide real-name authentication information to Simba based on information protection regulations.
At this time, Simba must sue Kuaishou through the channel of civil litigation, and after the court's judgment, kuaishou will provide relevant information. After that, Simba sued the infringer.
However, for the melon-eating masses, it is not difficult to understand that Simba's prosecution of Kuaishou is misread as a "decisive battle" between the two sides. After all, the contradictions between the two sides have a long history.
In April 2019, Simba and Sanda brother launched a scolding war over the "Fast Hand Brother". At that time, Simba said bluntly: "Quick hand, I hope you will polish your eyes a little, I Xin Youzhi (Simba's real name) in most of the categories, can mobilize the resources of the whole country, please make good use of my skills and resources."
For more than two years since then, Simba himself has repeatedly publicly denounced Kuaishou.
In April 2021, Simba "said goodbye" to fans in the live broadcast room of his apprentice Egg late at night, saying that he was "defeated by capital, defeated by traffic, and defeated by certain platforms" in his heart. However, the next day, he denied it live, saying that he "drank wine and didn't remember it very well."
During 618 this year, Simba once again accused Kuaishou, claiming that he spent 25 million yuan to buy traffic, but the number of people who actually watched the live broadcast "did not even 1 million.". In addition, other anchors only need to pay 2 yuan to get 1 fan, but he has to pay 6 yuan.
Simba believes that Kuaishou gave him unfair treatment and imposed "flow restrictions" on him.
In the past two years, in order to expand the commercial space and avoid the situation that large anchors "divide" the traffic balance platform, Kuaishou has changed the Buddhist attitude of "doing nothing" in the past, and began to redistribute the traffic pool to provide more traffic tools for small and medium-sized anchors.
For head anchors like Simba, in the early days, they operated through institutionalization, and the anchors diverted traffic between each other and built traffic barriers, but with the intervention of the platform, the traffic they perceived was relatively reduced, which triggered Simba's "buy traffic" incident.
As for why Simba cares so much about "limiting flow", for him, the reduction of traffic will directly lead to a decline in transaction volume. This can also be reflected in the data.
In 2019, the GMV of the Simba family has reached 13.3 billion, accounting for 22% of the annual GMV of Kuaishou, and in 2020, the total GMV of the top ten anchors of the Simba family has dropped to 6%.
His sense of crisis can be imagined.
(Source: Xin Youzhi Studio Weibo)
As a big anchor with more than 90 million fans, Simba has established his own live broadcast ecology for a long time.
In 2018, Simba established Simpson Group, linking thousands of manufacturers and building a product supply chain. On the official website of Xinxuan Supply Chain, it can be seen that Haier, Lenovo, United Lihua and other large enterprises are its partners.
He also built a family-style live broadcast matrix in Kuaishou through the form of apprenticeship. After the apprentices visited the teacher, Simba would meet with the fans with them on the live broadcast, and often told the fans that "their children are all dependent on the care of their families.". This method of mutual diversion undoubtedly brings more possibilities to his path to realization.
This model seems to be too strong, but the actual effect is not bad.
At present, Simba has dozens of anchors with only tens of millions of fans, and has a good record with goods. In October this year, Simba apprentice egg egg with a single month of 3.4 billion GMV, in the month's total network cargo data ranked the top three.
(Source: Simba Kuaishou account)
It seems that Simba's strength is strong enough. So, why does his dissatisfaction with Kuaishou stay only at the level of "war of words"?
Perhaps, as Simba said, "Although I have been patient for many years and have grievances, I feel that I am not grateful to Kuaishou?" Thanks, because you are a product of the new era, we are also complementary. ”。
Not only gratitude, but perhaps jealousy. Now Simba, did not have the courage to leave the fast hand.
First, the user tone of Kuaishou is more in line with Simba's personality, Kuaishou has given him huge room for growth, and the entire "Xin family" has hundreds of millions of fans relying on the Kuaishou platform, which is also his ability to "stand firm" in Kuaishou.
Second, if he leaves Kuaishou, Simba will inevitably face the problem of where to go. Although he has accounts on other platforms, he has little influence. So far, Simba has 3.61 million followers on Douyin, and even fewer on Weibo, with only 1.41 million.
The self-built platform has higher requirements for the number of daily active fans and fan stickiness, and Simba's fan scale is not enough to play the level of the ring compared with the platform with more than 300 million daily active users.
Moreover, Simba personally revealed in the live broadcast room that he has signed an agreement with the relevant live broadcast platform, and if he changes the platform, he will compensate 5 billion yuan.
Third, once Simba leaves, if the fan is not willing to move with it, he loses the weight to negotiate with the supplier.
In the final analysis, whether it is Simba or Xinxuan Group, it is based on the Kuaishou platform, just like Taobao to Sydney, once the anchor collapses, the goods can only be cleared at a low price, and the consequences are unimaginable.
Simba is equally important to The Fast Hand. Whether you want to stay in Simba or go to Simba, the fast hand must be cautious.
If you stay with Simba, on the one hand, Simba is a topic figure, whether it is a former apprentice asking for a salary or a fake bird's nest incident, or repeatedly accusing the platform, which has a negative impact on Kuaishou.
On the other hand, Simba cultivated the "Xin family" in Kuaishou and became the "second landlord" of Kuaishou. As a platform side, Kuaishou is not willing to let this group phenomenon squeeze the living space of independent anchors.
If the traffic of the entire platform is divided by a small number of heads, users can only see the "one-dimensional" content, the role of the platform will gradually weaken, and it is difficult to attract new anchors and new users to linger.
If you go to Simba, Kuaishou must consider whether the huge traffic that Simba and his apprentices have will be lost. How to protect the interests of the platform?
From 2020 onwards, Kuaishou e-commerce lags behind Douyin e-commerce and Taobao Live. This year, Douyin e-commerce and Taobao live GMV exceeded 500 billion yuan and 400 billion yuan respectively, compared with 381.2 billion yuan for Kuaishou.
In terms of user activity data, Kuaishou has also been left behind by Douyin, which started later. In the third quarter of 2021, Kuaishou's DAU (average daily active users) was 320.4 million, a significant increase from the first half of the year. Douyin, on the other hand, has achieved a DAU of more than 600 million in early 2021.
For Kuaishou, grabbing traffic and increasing GMV is the serious thing, if you lose Simba, lose the traffic and GMV of the Xin family, then the pace of Kuaishou catching up with Douyin will be slower.
It can be seen from Simba's repeated bans and re-broadcasts that the current Kuaishou is reluctant to completely "go to Simba".
(Source: Network)
The contradiction between Simba and Kuaishou is actually a microcosm of the entire live broadcasting industry. When the traffic ceiling arrives, how to maintain a balance between the head anchor and the platform?
For anchors, as the scale of fans expands and the data of goods rises, they will inevitably establish contact with more suppliers, and the demand for traffic will only increase.
However, no platform wants to let a certain anchor monopolize traffic, and a hundred flowers bloom is the most conducive state for the platform to stretch. Just as Ma Yun said before, "the traffic entrance should be grassland rather than forest", Kuaishou began to intervene in the flow pool based on such considerations.
Otherwise, when the big anchor falls or migrates, the traffic of the platform will face the embarrassing scene of nowhere to place, and finally it will either lead to a decline in transaction volume or a situation where the traffic leaves. A while ago, after Wei Ya's live broadcast room was blocked, the number of Li Jiaqi live broadcast room soared, as high as 39 million, you can see the "confusion" of Taobao users.
So, when the platform begins to limit the flow, where do the big anchors go?
The Humble Culture founded by Wei Ya and his wife has signed more than 50 anchors, and even if Wei Ya is banned, the remaining anchors can barely maintain the company's operation.
In the same way, Simba's "passing on the help" model is not only to make reserves for "going to Simba", but also to support more anchors, face the competition within the platform, and tap more traffic. Simba's establishment of its own supply chain is also a way of "self-protection".
In addition, in the limited live broadcast ecosystem, whether it is Luo Yonghao or Simba, they all have to go through the moment of buying traffic out of their own pockets.
The interests of the platform and the anchor, Kuaishou and Simba have been tied to each other, and their grievances will not stop at "restricting the flow", and it is difficult to have an ending in a short period of time.
As for the future, is It Kuaishou who first supports the anchor who can take over the baton? Or did Simba find a more suitable place to go first? We will continue to wait and see.
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