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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

#131

Post by IsaacL »

mapt wrote: post #124
IsaacL wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I can't figure out what you're saying.

Yes, China's legal environment is unfriendly to building a large business as a foreigner. But no, foreigners in China can start tech businesses with "near-zero regulatory compliance requirements" - I knew 3 white guys in Chengdu who started a mobile marketing consultancy in their apartment.

China is basically anarchistic in some areas, authoritarian in others, is what I'm getting at.

Re: Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

#132

Post by apahwa »

up_and_up wrote: post #128

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.

isn't that enough? they have a much larger population so if they copy then they could still become much larger and end up winning in the long run

Re: Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

#133

Post by bbody »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #130
bbody wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I am not saying that their policy is good or that I agree with it. I just think there are two sides to the picture.

Many countries have protectionist policies, in particular in the automotive industry. The United States even had limits on Chinese parts imports[1]. China had an interesting policy to allow its automotive industry to grow through joint ventures with foreign companies (e.g. Hyundai[2]). They have done somewhat similar things with tech companies like Google and Microsoft, to nurther talent and guanxi[3].

Also in regards to Malaysia, the government has threatened to ban Facebook before[4], however not as a mean to allow local competition to grow.

[1] http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/protectionism-cannot-save... [2] http://repository.brynmawr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1... [3] http://www.amazon.com/Guanxi-Art-Relationships-Microsoft-Gat... [4] https://globalvoices.org/2014/08/13/malaysian-government-thr...

Edit: Changed tense in regards to America's policy on Chinese imports.

Re: Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

#134

Post by voxic11 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #114
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…

Bing is not that bad as far as useful dev results go. I still use google at work (I'm an MS China employee) but Bing is perfectly reasonable at home, especially compared to the huge pile of crap that Baidu is. Didi is great if you can speak a bit of Chinese. I've had a decade of perfecting my taxi driver Chinese though (since I seem to only use Chinese to talk to taxi drivers these days). YouTube is still way better…

Bing is really reasonable for dev search results. Honestly not sure if the people bashing it have ever tried it for that purpose.

Re: Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

#135

Post by byw »

nametakenobv wrote: post #122
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.

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.

I'd say it's very much alive now-a-days. If it wasn't for protectionism, the American auto industry would've collapsed long ago (not adopting international safety standards, inferior product line for NA market).

Re: Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

#136

Post by [deleted] »

byw wrote: post #135
nametakenobv wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd say it's very much alive now-a-days. If it wasn't for protectionism, the American auto industry would've collapsed long ago (not adopting international safety standards, inferior product line for NA market).

[deleted]

Re: Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

#137

Post by [deleted] »

Drakim wrote: post #117
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.

Protectionism is a sorta tragedy of the commons type of deal, if everybody did it the advantage it offered would disappear.

[deleted]

Re: Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

#138

Post by byw »

cheriot wrote: post #118
devishard wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As much as I can't stand Trump and could never vote for him, I do think he's one of the few candidates raising the issue of how unfair our trade relations are with China. The WTO limits tariffs but the Chinese have found tons of indirect ways to implement protectionism: the great firewall, manipulating their currency, making it hard for US firms to take payments in China, etc. That's rich coming from the US.

Does the US have a reputation for protectionism? From a domestic point of view it seems like everything outside of steel and farming has been opened up

Auto industry. US/Canada have their own standards different from the UN standards the rest of the world adopts. Very few European cars are sold in NA beside a few high-end models.

Re: Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

#139

Post by yummyfajitas »

bbody wrote: post #133
yummyfajitas wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I am not saying that their policy is good or that I agree with it. I just think there are two sides to the picture. Many countries have protectionist policies, in particular in the automotive industry. The United States even had limits on Chinese parts imports[1]. China had an interesting policy to allow its automotive industry to grow through joint ventures with foreign companies (e.g. Hyundai[2]). They have done so…

I'm aware that protectionism is rampant around the world and that the US does it too. I also oppose that and believe US protectionism harms US consumers.

Re: Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

#140

Post by simlevesque »

voxic11 wrote: post #134
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bing is not that bad as far as useful dev results go. I still use google at work (I'm an MS China employee) but Bing is perfectly reasonable at home, especially compared to the huge pile of crap that Baidu is. Didi is great if you can speak a bit of Chinese. I've had a decade of perfecting my taxi driver Chinese though (since I seem to only use Chinese to talk to taxi drivers these days). YouTube is still way better…

Bing is really reasonable for dev search results. Honestly not sure if the people bashing it have ever tried it for that purpose.

I bet the MS employee has tried it for that purpose. He still uses Google at work.
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