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Why is China smashing its tech industry?

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Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#191

Post by itmayno »

Animats wrote: post #150

China is not "smashing its tech industry". It's cracking down on private Internet companies that acquired too much power through network effects. This is completely consistent with CCP doctrine. Anything that central has to be state-owned. Xi declared this year that while digitization is important, “we must recognize the fundamental importance of the real economy… and never deindustrialize.” Right. China, remember, h…

“ It's cracking down on private Internet companies that acquired too much power through network effects.”

Sounds like smashing to me. Smashing down on private companies and innovations. Smashing down on private wealth and power. Smashing down on freedom and growth. You can tell the dictator is getting desperate if he stops the train of innovation.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#192

Post by sangnoir »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #181
sydd wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is. If it would be totally banned it would result in an emergence of a black market. We have the same thing on Hungary, there is one state controlled gambling company that's under heavy regulation (18+ only, full with warning signs against gambling, barely any advertisements, has only a few old-school products like scratch cards)

Sure a black market would be worse, but why not just regulate it. Government shouldn't have an incentive to ensure that gambling exists and remains profitable which they do so long as they're running it. Government shouldn't be directly engaged in the business of any vice for that reason.

Because the government is less prone to bouts of greed.

No stockholders who expect infinite profit growth, no CxO with bonuses dependent on increasing revenue, and has public oversight by default: government should be the only entity trusted to directly engage in any vice business. They are the only entity I trust to put honest effort in decreasing their user base.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#193

Post by hiq »

crossroadsguy wrote: post #183
triceratops wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook, sure. Why Netflix? TV and movies have always been around. The US owes its status as a cultural superpower to Hollywood. Too much TV and movie-watching isn't good for a nation, sure, but you could make that argument about any pastime.

Netflix has one of darkest UX patterns hidden in plain sight. Or not even hidden maybe.

Can you be more explicit? Are you talking about auto-play?

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#194

Post by armadsen »

Mizza wrote: post #53
caeril wrote: post #11

> China may simply see things differently. It’s possible that the Chinese government has decided that the profits of companies like Alibaba and Tencent come more from rents than from actual value added Excellent observation, and I hope, for China's sake, that this is the reason. The United States is likely in for a long-term rude awakening when it finally realizes that an economy predicated on negative-value-add acti…

Hijacking this comment a bit, but I haven't watched real TV in a very long time but have been tuning in again because of the Olympics and Jeopardy. I'm seeing an incredible amount of ads for companies that let you gamble real money on your phone. Sometimes it's back to back to back to back commercials for online app casinos. This seems really dangerous and a sign of a tragically unhealthy and predatory economy - I ca…

I’m in Southern Africa right now and was watching the Olympics on local TV and noticed the same thing. Some commercial breaks consisted of nothing but back to back ads for the same local-market (ie. southern African) sports betting app. It was weird.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#195

Post by mcguire »

Alternative hypothesis: This is just another round in the infighting between China's party, government, and big business, one that the party and government intends to win.

China's big, customer-facing "tech industry" (I agree with that part of the argument) lives in the same environment as that of the rest of the world, with the same ability to generate the same large profits. Those large profits provide a power base that threatens the party, which in turn uses its governmental power to smack down anything threatening.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#196

Post by endymi0n »

Animats wrote: post #150

China is not "smashing its tech industry". It's cracking down on private Internet companies that acquired too much power through network effects. This is completely consistent with CCP doctrine. Anything that central has to be state-owned. Xi declared this year that while digitization is important, “we must recognize the fundamental importance of the real economy… and never deindustrialize.” Right. China, remember, h…

Wow, it‘s actually public… in hindsight, I should probably not be surprised, but it has the same eery feel to me like when I learned that Hitler had actually written down all of his plans around eradicating Jews and Germanic world dominance in his book „Mein Kampf“ a decade before he put it into reality — it was just that nobody took it seriously since they thought he was a lunatic.

Maybe it‘s about time to read the Chinese 5 year plans in depth.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#197

Post by mcguire »

itmayno wrote: post #191
Animats wrote: post #150

China is not "smashing its tech industry". It's cracking down on private Internet companies that acquired too much power through network effects. This is completely consistent with CCP doctrine. Anything that central has to be state-owned. Xi declared this year that while digitization is important, “we must recognize the fundamental importance of the real economy… and never deindustrialize.” Right. China, remember, h…

“ It's cracking down on private Internet companies that acquired too much power through network effects.” Sounds like smashing to me. Smashing down on private companies and innovations. Smashing down on private wealth and power. Smashing down on freedom and growth. You can tell the dictator is getting desperate if he stops the train of innovation.

That makes the assumption that "innovation" is consumer facing internet technology.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#198

Post by nemo44x »

volta83 wrote: post #40

> There are certainly those in America who believe that Facebook and Google produce little of value relative to the profit they rake in; maybe China’s leaders, for reasons that will remain forever opaque to us, have simply reached the same conclusion. Arguably, capturing most of your country's top talent with absurd salaries and putting them to work on world-critical challenges like... how to generate more revenue fr…

> 10 years later I am starting to wonder what my legacy is going to be.

Isn't this a major reason people start families? Having kids and people and things to take care of gives life a lot of meaning to many people. So much so that the vapid trivialities of the everyday modern life are mere amusements we gratefully accept rather than the daily struggle most people that ever lived before us had to endure.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#199

Post by mountainb »

caeril wrote: post #11

> China may simply see things differently. It’s possible that the Chinese government has decided that the profits of companies like Alibaba and Tencent come more from rents than from actual value added Excellent observation, and I hope, for China's sake, that this is the reason. The United States is likely in for a long-term rude awakening when it finally realizes that an economy predicated on negative-value-add acti…

China produces more steel in a month than the US does in an entire year of all types. US steel production is around 7% of Chinese steel production. Could the US ramp up steel production etc. on a crash basis under war conditions? Yes, but the overall picture is not great, given that China could also ramp up its production under the same constraints.
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