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Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

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Re: Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

#121

Post by golergka »

gbog wrote: post #119
golergka wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's why for countries who aren't US closest allies it makes total sense to base military infrastructure on open-source operating systems and software (because let's be honest, Russian or Chinese military most likely won't be able to produce their own modern OS of comparable quality from scratch). However, software and hardware on one hard, and internet on another, aren't the same thing: I don't see how one can…

Why only military infrastructure? Image a war between, say the USA and Russia, and imagine that the USA manages to shut down or cripple all Windows machines in Russia, this will probably put the enemy on the kneels, even more than weeks of airstrikes. And it may also be better PR as it do not directly "kill" anyone. I have always thought that Microsoft holding 95% of PCs in the world is extremely dangerous, and can't…

Because unlike oil, computers running on different OS create difficulties for users and developers. Apart from the point of national security, I think it's reasonable to assume that in an alternative world, where 20 operating systems competed on desktop market with more-or-less equal market shares, everybody would suffer from neverending compatibility problems, we would have worse applications, a lot of businesses would never succeed and a lot less value would be created in IT industry overall.

Hell, we don't even have to imagine — remember testing JS on every browser around 2007?

Re: Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

#122

Post by nametakenobv »

jfoster wrote: post #108
supster wrote: post #4

It must help Chinese startups that many SV companies are blocked from competing in China. For example no competition from Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Youtube, Gmail, Dropbox, Vimeo, SoundCloud... more info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Websites_blocked_in_mainland_C...

Absolutely. Corollary: When running a country, protectionism of tech businesses can really pay off if your population is large enough. Should every country follow Beijing's example? I'm not sure it leads to a good outcome globally, but on a per-country basis it seems like countries with large populations do have something to gain by acting selfishly.

Every country on track to become a major super power enacts policies of protectionism at the beginning. America had one of the biggest. In fact, American independence spurred from imposed protectionism from Britain on tea. Later they imposed the same policies for their own benefit. It is only natural to do it.

Re: Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

#123

Post by nbevans »

supster wrote: post #4

It must help Chinese startups that many SV companies are blocked from competing in China. For example no competition from Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Youtube, Gmail, Dropbox, Vimeo, SoundCloud... more info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Websites_blocked_in_mainland_C...

I wish the UK would block American SV firms in a similar way, to be quite honest.

Re: Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

#124

Post by mapt »

IsaacL wrote: post #99
dilemma wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As it was explained to me... If you want to do business in China and you're not a citizen, you damn-well need to find one to start a Chinese business which can transact with you formally. If you want to scale your business and you don't have a midlevel member of the Communist Party running your HR department, you damn-well need to find one who can drink baijiu with the right people. If you want to scale your busine…

What's a fishing story? I haven't heard that phrase. Anyway, yeah, it's funny how often you meet experts on Chinese business who haven't actually done business in China but can go into elaborate detail about why it's a bad idea. I met lots of Western entrepreneurs out there - there are tons of foreigners running bars, restaurants, outsourcing firms , language schools, etc without much hassle from the government. You…

"I wouldn't start a big internet company out there"

We're not talking about bars and restaurants.

Small internet companies in Silicon Valley all want to be big internet companies. To do that they need investment, ownership, freedom to transact contracts and appoint employees at will. You can set up a small startup in somebody's garage anywhere in the USA, but you are unlikely to scale to a billion dollar company. Few get to be unicorns, but those that do drive the cycle for everybody. They're enabled at the early stage by having near-zero regulatory compliance requirements, and nearly zero people that they have to convince that they have a genuinely good idea. This is not the way business is done by foreigners in mainland China.

Re: Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

#125

Post by hunglee2 »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #91
hunglee2 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent point. The net beneficiaries of 'free trade' rarely have cause to question the policies that have given them great returns. The last 200 years of Chinese history is describes very clearly the impact of the imposition of free trading principles, where the freedom to say 'no' to free trade (of opium) was overturned at the barrel of a gun. To this day, China refers to the 'century of humiliation' and is hyper…

If China had kept its isolationism from before the opium war for much longer, it's hard to imagine its emergence as an economic super power

Yes, I think I would agree. I would draw a difference between protectionism vs isolationism though. Protectionism is more like a temporary ringfence of strategic industries you want to nurture - the long game is always to unleash them into the competitive free market when they are fit for that competition. Perhaps that is indeed the real reason for the firewall - a plan, ridiculously long term plan - to conquer the world with domestically cultivated innovation

Re: Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

#126

Post by yummyfajitas »

jfoster wrote: post #108
supster wrote: post #4

It must help Chinese startups that many SV companies are blocked from competing in China. For example no competition from Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Youtube, Gmail, Dropbox, Vimeo, SoundCloud... more info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Websites_blocked_in_mainland_C...

Absolutely. Corollary: When running a country, protectionism of tech businesses can really pay off if your population is large enough. Should every country follow Beijing's example? I'm not sure it leads to a good outcome globally, but on a per-country basis it seems like countries with large populations do have something to gain by acting selfishly.

What does China actually gain from this?

For the government the answer is clear: locally situated companies that they have total control over. WeChat will obviously never pull a Google style "encrypt all the things" - they'll happily help the state reduce the credit scores of political dissidents and anyone who is friends with them.

For politically connected cronies (e.g. WeChat owners), the answer is also clear.

But if you are just a Chinese citizen, what do you gain? Inferior substitutes for the Google/Facebook/etc infrastructure? Isolation from the rest of the world?

[1] This excellent article argues that WeChat's "conversational interface" is just a crude hack around app store restrictions. http://dangrover.com/blog/2016/04/20/bots-wont-replace-apps....

Re: Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

#127

Post by tluyben2 »

chw9e wrote: post #120
tluyben2 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a Google in terms of making money, they don't have a Google in terms of usefulness. The search engines in China are unusable; my Chinese colleagues are far less efficient than we are because of it. When i'm sitting next to them with my SSH lynx to Google, I find answers fast which they cannot. Baidu is just only bought links (inherently bad quality) and Bing is, well, just a really bad search engine. That's…

In Shanghai, using Uber's carpooling feature it is much cheaper to take Uber than Didi. I have had quite a few rides (with 2-3 other people riding with) that were cheaper than it would have cost to take the subway. I'm not sure Didi has the algorithms ready to do this yet. I should say I haven't tried Didi in a few months, it may have improved since the last time I used it.

In Shanghai I find Uber quite cheap when not sharing. That is probably because I am used to London.

Re: Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

#128

Post by up_and_up »

Can someone name one innovative or disruptive technology that has come out of China in the last 20 years? Honest question.

I am admitting ignorance here. I have this assumption that many Chinese companies just copy/refactor existing ideas and apply them to their protected market.

Re: Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

#129

Post by bbody »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #126
jfoster wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. Corollary: When running a country, protectionism of tech businesses can really pay off if your population is large enough. Should every country follow Beijing's example? I'm not sure it leads to a good outcome globally, but on a per-country basis it seems like countries with large populations do have something to gain by acting selfishly.

What does China actually gain from this? For the government the answer is clear: locally situated companies that they have total control over. WeChat will obviously never pull a Google style "encrypt all the things" - they'll happily help the state reduce the credit scores of political dissidents and anyone who is friends with them. For politically connected cronies (e.g. WeChat owners), the answer is also clear. But…

> But if you are just a Chinese citizen, what do you gain?

Apps that are localized to their needs.

> Inferior substitutes for the Google/Facebook/etc infrastructure?

They aren't necessarily inferior. WeChat for example has a very intuitive privacy settings, which make a lot more sense than the complicated Facebook ones.

> Isolation from the rest of the world?

Many of these apps are expanding outside of China (To mixed success).

Re: Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

#130

Post by yummyfajitas »

bbody wrote: post #129
yummyfajitas wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does China actually gain from this? For the government the answer is clear: locally situated companies that they have total control over. WeChat will obviously never pull a Google style "encrypt all the things" - they'll happily help the state reduce the credit scores of political dissidents and anyone who is friends with them. For politically connected cronies (e.g. WeChat owners), the answer is also clear. But…

> But if you are just a Chinese citizen, what do you gain? Apps that are localized to their needs. > Inferior substitutes for the Google/Facebook/etc infrastructure? They aren't necessarily inferior. WeChat for example has a very intuitive privacy settings, which make a lot more sense than the complicated Facebook ones. > Isolation from the rest of the world? Many of these apps are expanding outside of China (To mixe…

If apps localized to one's needs provide value then there is no need for protectionism. People will choose to use the localized apps.

India has a thriving ecosystem of local apps, but with negligible protectionism [1]. Uber, Ola, Zomato and others do a great job of localizing for Indian needs. Based on recent experiences I'd say Uber does a better job than Ola in this regard, in fact.

When I visited Malaysia, several folks I spoke to said they have a similar ecosystem.

The best thing is that Indians/Malaysians don't have to give up Gmail or Facebook if they don't want to.

[1] At least negligible protectionism w.r.t other apps. Ola competes on equal footing with Uber, but both suffer from protectionism w.r.t. legacy taxi providers.

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