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From imitation to innovation: How China became a tech superpower

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Re: From imitation to innovation: How China became a tech superpower

#81

Post by ttoinou »

coldtea wrote: post #80
ttoinou wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scientific part is just using some math while still basing their ideas on idealized unworkable models and unprovable assumptions. You don't need maths to show that less competition changes the incentive to the point that it could bring down quality of service.

Yes, but also don't need maths to know that competition can be controlled with 20 ways (and usually is, e.g. US ISPs), or that you can have tariffs AND internal competition. Or even that you can have a fine quality product at a good price even without competition at all -- e.g. produced by a single vendor, as long as the vendor is so inclined.

If competition is controlled then there's less competition and one can expect efficiency to drop down ceteris paribus. Now you have to explain why controlling competition could lead into better quality or cheaper prices. (The only thing I see is that it could let governments keep more money, thus more power ?)

  fine quality product at a good price even without competition at all
Threat of competition is also a form of competition (for example a software product not protected with patents, anyone could compete so the producer offers good prices)

Re: From imitation to innovation: How China became a tech superpower

#82

Post by fny »

speedplane wrote: post #35

I was recently reviewing front-end frameworks (i.e., React vs. Angular), and part of the review was looking at Google Trends to get an idea of their relative popularity. I was pretty surprised to see that while React has been gaining on Angular for some time worldwide, it's had remarkable growth in China, where it now surpasses Angular by a wide margin. Certainly seems that China is faster to adopt this technology th…

This is probably because Vue.js is as dominant in China as React.

Re: From imitation to innovation: How China became a tech superpower

#83

Post by yuhong »

Animats wrote: post #15

It's mostly making real stuff, too. The US suffers from ad-based companies, especially Google and Facebook, dominating "tech". YC recognizes this; most newer YC startups are not ad-funded. But it's going to take a while to turn this around. It's like that strange period in the 1990s when 40% of US corporate profits came from financial activities, and every big company had to have a finance subsidiary with a trading d…

Yea, that ad bubble is one of my favorite topics right now. Part of it is that the US economy has been mostly based on debt (to generate growth) since the 1970s though, with the Japanese being first (after US manufacturing lost dominance). As a side note: https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user330... Notice the period where debt was not increasing but stocks were going up. I suspect this was not a coincidence.

Re: From imitation to innovation: How China became a tech superpower

#84

Post by remir »

dalbasal wrote: post #67
remir wrote: post #62

I am not American, but I think it's fair to say that America brought the world into "modernity". Telephone, computers, software, the internet, smart devices, these had a huge impact on the world. To me, the real test of China's innovation will be to see if they can have a true and significant impact on the world. We often talk about innovation in terms of technological advancements, but we need to also talk about inn…

In that context, I think you need to consider the US' impact on political norms. It was the first modern democratic republic. Its basic political norms and rights form the most important example of what we know as liberal democracy.

Absolutely. I think if other countries want to be inspired by the US, they should look at its constitution.

Re: From imitation to innovation: How China became a tech superpower

#85

Post by Can_Not »

thefounder wrote: post #74
dalbasal wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that context, I think you need to consider the US' impact on political norms. It was the first modern democratic republic. Its basic political norms and rights form the most important example of what we know as liberal democracy.

I believe US should be credited with being the biggest supporter of modern democracy rather than being the first modern democracy. This seems to be changing though, pure financial interests seem to the new policy. If there is one reason I don't want China to succeed is because of its communist regime.

> US should be credited with being the biggest supporter of modern democracy

They have too interesting of a record toppling foreign democracies for me to agree.

Re: From imitation to innovation: How China became a tech superpower

#86

Post by Can_Not »

ttoinou wrote: post #81
coldtea wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but also don't need maths to know that competition can be controlled with 20 ways (and usually is, e.g. US ISPs), or that you can have tariffs AND internal competition. Or even that you can have a fine quality product at a good price even without competition at all -- e.g. produced by a single vendor, as long as the vendor is so inclined.

If competition is controlled then there's less competition and one can expect efficiency to drop down ceteris paribus. Now you have to explain why controlling competition could lead into better quality or cheaper prices. (The only thing I see is that it could let governments keep more money, thus more power ?) fine quality product at a good price even without competition at all Threat of competition is also a form of…

The US is really big, if there's not a mis-configured regulation, adding overseas competition won't really increase efficiency as the perfectly sperical market in a vacuum equation suggests.

Re: From imitation to innovation: How China became a tech superpower

#87

Post by ttoinou »

Can_Not wrote: post #86
ttoinou wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If competition is controlled then there's less competition and one can expect efficiency to drop down ceteris paribus. Now you have to explain why controlling competition could lead into better quality or cheaper prices. (The only thing I see is that it could let governments keep more money, thus more power ?) fine quality product at a good price even without competition at all Threat of competition is also a form of…

The US is really big, if there's not a mis-configured regulation, adding overseas competition won't really increase efficiency as the perfectly sperical market in a vacuum equation suggests.

Maths have nothing to do with economics. I said efficiency as a way of comparing market offer from the point of view of customers (you can picture the formula "quality/price" if you want but that doesn't mean that it is objectively & mathematically defined), meaning that prices go down and/or quality increases

   mis-configured regulation
Do you have examples of good protectionist regulation ?

And no I gave a specific example with software patents so even if the US is big enough it can benefits from outside products

Re: From imitation to innovation: How China became a tech superpower

#88

Post by bajablast »

speedplane wrote: post #37
bewo001 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every industrial nation started by copying the British. The European countries and the US did it in the 19th century. In the 1960s/70, everybody joked about the Japanese copying everything. In the 80s, South Korea was known for cheap copies of electronic devices. It is/was only a matter of time for China to move from copying to innovating.

One thing the U.S. (and Europe) still deal very well is branding and messaging. Most of our electronics are designed and made in China, but they are still branded and sold by western countries. The U.S. is still adept at manufacturing brands, lifestyles, identity, and "cool". While China developing it's own technology was practically inevitable, it will be far more interesting when they begin influencing what people…

Well actually a lot of things that say made in China are actually just assembled there. Like the essentially all of the core components of the iPhone are made in Japan/SK/Germany/US and then shipped to China to be put together.

Re: From imitation to innovation: How China became a tech superpower

#89

Post by bajablast »

speedplane wrote: post #35

I was recently reviewing front-end frameworks (i.e., React vs. Angular), and part of the review was looking at Google Trends to get an idea of their relative popularity. I was pretty surprised to see that while React has been gaining on Angular for some time worldwide, it's had remarkable growth in China, where it now surpasses Angular by a wide margin. Certainly seems that China is faster to adopt this technology th…

honestly, who in their right mind would use the new Angular it's objectively worse in every area. In my experience only Angular development is maintaining Legacy code. Picking the new Angular would be insane it's slow, buggier, less flexible and more expensive to develop and find talent to build it's truly a lose-lose (unless you are a Angular team consultant that is)

Re: From imitation to innovation: How China became a tech superpower

#90

Post by nl »

petra wrote: post #50
nl wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DJI, WeChat, Quantum comms satellite, the Xiaomi production model, overnight train station building etc etc. I dunno - I can think of lots of criticisms of China but this isn't one.

Maybe China is innovative, but regarding Xiaomi, i'm not so sure they have a unique production model, or rather they are willing to sustain low profits, or are even be subsidized by China - because controlling people's phones is a really valuable thing.

Or maybe everyone just loves their products, because of their closely linked sales and manufacture process? And their careful use of flash sales and then incremental releases of the same product lets them profit from dropping bill-of-material prices over time so their overall margin is the same as the industry average, even though they sell high-end phones at close to zero margin.

Xiaomi believes that in markets where consumer preferences are hard to predict and change rapidly, “flash sales” can help determine which products are likely to be big hits, driving future production.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bigbangdisruption/2014/04/03/bi...

A big contributor to its profitability is its introduction of new products through online pre-order “flash” sales, which is usually a highly anticipated event in the community. At the phone’s introduction, Xiaomi sets a limit to the number of pre-orders possible, which will often sell out in the first hour or even within minutes. After it has taken its initial set of orders, Xiaomi will then work with Foxconn, its ODM, to build phones. This allows the company to receive advance payment from customers while incurring extremely low inventory costs because products are shipped from Foxconn directly to customers. Xiaomi also has very minimal sales and marketing costs because most advertising is done through its social networks.

and

Xiaomi, on the other hand, at launch, sets the consumer price close to the BOM cost, which ensures price competitiveness. At point 2, BOM cost has already declined, Xiaomi limits the availability of devices, and selected device batches are manufactured at the lower BOM cost. At point 3, mass deliveries start when gross margin is high enough, and volume accelerates as BOM cost decreases. At point 4, when consumer price becomes less competitive, they launch an “S” version of the product by upgrading selected components (e.g. engine) and launch at an even lower price. However, at this point, the BOM price has decreased. Overall, the longer product life gives a better lifetime margin.’

https://rctom.hbs.org/submission/xiaomi-mobile-disruptor-fro...

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