小红书(Xiaohongshu) is just a closed social media platform, no different from Twitter today. It cannot even be searched using traditional search engines such as Baidu (China's Google equivalent) to retrieve its content. It also lacks the strong interoperability and protocol-level openness of platforms like Fediverse and Nostr (just as Twitter and Reddit are becoming less open today). Since its inception, Xiaohongshu has never intended to easily share its internal user data with others. This user data is its most valuable asset, known as "私域流量(private domain traffic)".

Its success in China is undeniable. Even if Chinese young people do not use Xiaohongshu, they know what it is because it is as popular in China as TikTok, Reddit and Twitter. Of course, the Little Red Book is criticised by just as many people for being "brainwashing", in the same way that most people treat TikTok, depending on how you use it.

By the way, Chinese young people don't like 微信(WeChat). Most young people only use it because they "have to", as because it's everywhere in real life, whether it's for socialising or mobile payments. Just because they don't have a choice doesn't mean they like it.