Looking back at the era when the "Laotie" community alone could captivate investors, that was Kuaishou's golden age: daily active users were climbing, revenues were rising, and market share was expanding—every metric seemed to proclaim that Kuaishou was growing up.

On August 29, to commemorate Chu Ruixue (wife of Xin Ba) taking over the account, Xinxuan launched a "Return Anniversary" livestream. With slogans like "Long time no see, we've missed you," "Unprecedented benefits and mechanisms," and "Giving up all profits," the hype lasted for days. Yet the official Weibo post drew only 35 comments, and media coverage was scant. A platform once valued at over a trillion Hong Kong dollars, built on the backs of its "Laotie" community, now sees its most core livestreaming family struggling to regain its former influence.

On the same day, Kuaishou's Guanghe Creator Conference was held in Wuhan, where founder Cheng Yixiao stood on stage discussing "community," "632 interest circles," and the "content ecosystem." The audience listened attentively, but everyone knew the capital markets weren't interested in community narratives. They cared about AI, about Kling's 850 million yuan in revenue, its 100 million users, and an $18 billion valuation. Five years on, the 1.23 trillion yuan market cap once propped up by the "Laotie" community has dwindled to 0.15 trillion Hong Kong dollars. The era where a single call of "Laotie" could weave a compelling story is over.

In February 2021, Kuaishou listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with six "Laotie" representatives ringing the bell. On its debut, shares opened at HK$338, up 193% from the IPO price, and the market cap briefly surged to HK$1.39 trillion, cementing its status as the "first short-video stock." Founder Su Hua stood before the cameras, thanking every Kuaishou user, knowing full well who had propelled the company to such heights. In the year before listing, Kuaishou's revenue hit 58.78 billion yuan, with livestreaming tipping contributing 33.2 billion yuan, up 5.6% year-on-year and accounting for over half of total revenue—money meticulously donated by the "Laotie" community.

The value of the "Laotie" community extended far beyond tipping. Kuaishou's revenue grew from 8.3 billion yuan in 2017 to 81.1 billion yuan in 2021, nearly a tenfold increase in four years. During the same period, Momo, a livestreaming-focused platform, saw revenue rise from about 8.36 billion yuan in 2017 to only around 15 billion yuan by 2020. Kuaishou had clearly outgrown its rivals in the same space. E-commerce, built from scratch, saw explosive growth too: GMV jumped from less than 100 million yuan in 2018 to 680 billion yuan in 2021—a nearly 7,000-fold increase in three years. Meanwhile, Mogujie, founded around the same time and also relying on private domain traffic, recorded only about 10 billion yuan in GMV for fiscal 2021. By that year, Kuaishou's e-commerce user repurchase rate had already reached 65%. When a livestream host called out "Laotie," conversion rates would climb several points—a level of trust that even algorithms couldn't replicate.

The "Laotie" community didn't just spend money; they lived on Kuaishou. Daily active users hit 308 million in 2021, with average daily usage exceeding 100 minutes. Nearly two hours of daily engagement made advertisers take notice, driving online marketing revenue from 21.9 billion yuan in 2020 to 42.7 billion yuan in 2021, a 95.2% year-on-year surge. A company that started as a tool, driven by the mission to "let ordinary people be seen," grew into a near-100-billion-yuan annual revenue behemoth within a few years—a feat few in the industry could match. Back then, few questioned "how much bigger Kuaishou could get"; as long as the "Laotie" community remained, the answer was self-evident.

Years on, the "Laotie" community still uses Kuaishou, but the fervor has cooled. In Q2 this year, daily active users reached 412 million, up just over 3 million year-on-year, a growth rate of 0.8%, compared to 3.4% a year prior. Monthly active users hit 797 million, up 11.5% year-on-year, a record high. The divergence—MAU rising while DAU stagnates—suggests many monthly users only open the app sporadically, without forming habitual usage patterns. In other words, the "Laotie" community is still there, just not as engaged as before.

The contraction in livestreaming is stark. Q2 livestream revenue fell to 8.69 billion yuan, down 13.5% year-on-year, marking the third consecutive quarter of decline, with the rate of decline accelerating. Livestreaming's share of total revenue dropped from 95.3% in 2017 to 38.2% in 2021, and further to 25.2% in Q1 2026. The "Laotie" community's tipping enthusiasm is waning, and Kuaishou's management acknowledges the livestreaming business is in an "adjustment phase focused on healthy supply-side development and product innovation."

The e-commerce pivot is more subtle. During the Q2 earnings call, Cheng Yixiao revealed that e-commerce GMV rose 38.9% year-on-year to 265.5 billion yuan. The growth is still healthy, but nothing compared to years past—GMV growth was as high as 78.4% in 2021. Notably, these figures were absent from the earnings report itself. Since 2026, Kuaishou has stopped disclosing GMV separately in its financial statements. A metric once touted as a core growth indicator is now only mentioned verbally during Q&A sessions.

Even more telling is the departure of key influencers. In August 2025, Xin Ba announced his exit from livestreaming due to health issues. Within less than a year, four of his early disciples—Dandan, Zhao Mengche, Mao Meimei, and Shi Da Piaoliang—all left Xinxuan. In his farewell post, Zhao Mengche revealed that "based on GMV calculations over the years, my take-home income never exceeded 1.85%," calling the revenue split "far below industry averages." Meanwhile, other former big names like Sandage and Erlu have also faded from public view. Xin Ba was a standard-bearer of "Laotie culture," and his four disciples were the backbone of tipping and e-commerce fundamentals. Their concentrated departure within a year marks a rapid disappearance of the most familiar faces in Kuaishou's livestreaming ecosystem.

"I'm burned out, no regrets left," Xin Ba, who had been off the grid for nearly a year, said tearfully during a live chat on August 18, stating he no longer wanted to appear on camera for "some people's wealth." But then he added, "If Kuaishou gave me a few billion yuan to do one show, I'd do it." That phrase—"a few billion for one show"—captures his complicated entanglement with the platform. The one-time king of Kuaishou, who once sold 6.4 billion yuan in a single night, has put a price tag on his return. Some see this as both a final valuation of his worth and a farewell to the golden era of livestream e-commerce. The age where a single "Laotie" call could trigger overnight sales is ending; Xin Ba and his disciples have dispersed, and with them, many of the reasons the "Laotie" community stayed are fading too.

Kuaishou itself is also turning the page. In Q2, revenue was 35.535 billion yuan, up just 1.4% year-on-year; adjusted net profit was 3.913 billion yuan, down 30.3%; and gross margin fell from 55.7% to 51.6% year-on-year. Revenue growth without profit growth—where did the money go? Research and development. R&D expenses hit 4.581 billion yuan, up 34.7% year-on-year, rising from 9.7% to 12.9% of revenue. The earnings report explicitly attributes this increase to "increased AI investment"—large model training, computing infrastructure, and video generation research, each a money-burning abyss.

Contrasting the R&D surge is a contraction in sales and marketing expenses. Q2 sales and marketing costs were 9.922 billion yuan, down 5.5% year-on-year, dropping from 30.0% to 27.9% of revenue. Kuaishou's future priorities are clear. In July, the company announced that Kling AI, its video generation large model, had completed a nearly $3 billion financing round, with a post-investment valuation of around $18 billion. Analysis suggests that after excluding Kling's equity, Kuaishou's short-video business is valued at only about $6 billion. A business generating 850 million yuan in quarterly revenue is now valued almost as highly as its parent company, which earns over 140 billion yuan annually—capital markets are voting with real money that Kling, not the "Laotie" community, is Kuaishou's future.

Cheng Yixiao was blunt in the earnings call: "We continue to leverage our AI strategy value... while firmly investing in AI technology, we achieved an adjusted net profit of 3.9 billion yuan." AI is the primary strategy, not just a slogan. Management even stated they won't cut AI investment to protect short-term profits and are willing to absorb 1-2 quarters of profit pressure. It's not that Kuaishou has abandoned the "Laotie" community. The Guanghe Conference still emphasizes community, the 500 million yuan cash and 50 billion traffic creator support plan is still running, and the "Kuaishou Flavor Plan" continues to nurture creators with "a touch of everyday life and human warmth." These moves show Kuaishou knows the "Laotie" community still holds value. But it can no longer tell the growth story built on them. With R&D spending surging 35% and marketing cuts, the incremental resources are clearly no longer directed at the "Laotie" community. Between a 1.4% growth core business and a 200% growth Kling, the bet is obvious.

In 2021, the "Laotie" community's tips lifted Kuaishou to a trillion-yuan market cap. Five years later, that figure has dwindled to under 200 billion Hong Kong dollars. The trillion yuan that evaporated was built by the "Laotie" community, and it's the "Laotie" community that has slowly let go. During that golden age, every metric pointed to growth. Now, Kuaishou still tells the community story, but with increasing difficulty. At the Guanghe Conference, Cheng Yixiao cycled through new terms—from "trust e-commerce" to "new marketplace" to "interest circles"—different words each year. The story isn't bad; it's that the audience isn't listening as intently anymore. After a trillion yuan in market value vanished, the era Kuaishou misses most is gone for good.

R&D spending is up 35%, Kling's valuation approaches that of its parent, and management says it's "willing to accept 1-2 quarters of profit pressure." Translated, this means: the "Laotie" community matters, but AI can't be lost. Both can coexist, but there's only one pool of incremental resources, and Kuaishou has given it to AI. In the current competitive landscape, Kuaishou has little choice. In Q2 2026, Alibaba's quarterly capital expenditure hit 67.678 billion yuan, Tencent's 52.784 billion yuan, and together they exceeded 120 billion yuan in a single quarter. ByteDance has been even more aggressive, raising its 2026 AI infrastructure spending plan to 200 billion yuan. Kuaishou, meanwhile, projects about 26 billion yuan in capital expenditure for all of 2026—Alibaba's single quarter is more than double Kuaishou's entire year, and ByteDance's annual spend is nearly eight times Kuaishou's. This isn't a level playing field. When rivals are plowing hundreds of billions into computing power, chips, and data centers, Kuaishou can only direct its limited 26 billion yuan into a single direction. The industry is fighting an AI war of attrition, and Kuaishou has no bandwidth for anything else. It chose AI because it had to. But will the "Laotie" community still embrace a Kuaishou that's betting its future on AI?