51–60 of 182 posts
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Can you tell us more about how the government picked the winner?
Under COVID, when being able to board public transport, enter venues, etc. required showing one’s health status from one’s phone, the Chinese state facilitated that through two apps in particular: WeChat and Alipay.
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Many people (both poor and rich) are leaving china, places with sharia law, and moving to the west. Why are they leaving to the west? The west isn't perfect, but people seem to see it as an improvement to their homelands.
> Many people (both poor and rich) are leaving china, places with sharia law, and moving to the west. The countries with the highest per capita immigration are in the middle east, not in 'the west'. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/mapped-immigration-by-co... Do you think they are moving to the middle east because of their love of sharia law? Or do you think they are moving they for economic opportunities? People…
The host countries are largely empty husks which have very unproductive labour. They offset the productivity gap with oil revenues to bring in cheap labour keeping their quality of life higher.
And yes, big IMHO to everything I said. I don't carry source in my back pocket.
Much like Adobe did to Macs in the 1990s, WeChat has become so powerful they control the platform. Apple can’t remove WeChat because most consumers would rather change device hardware than lose access to WeChat.
[0] https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/30/21348108/apple-amazon-pri...
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/30/18203551/apple-facebook-b...
[2] https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/23/15399438/apple-uber-app-s...
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> Much like Adobe did to Macs in the 1990s, WeChat has become so powerful they control the platform. I'd enjoy listening to the story here, spacebanana.
Adobe almost killed Apple by developing Windows-first and sometimes Windows-only products in the 1990s. Many professionals cared about Adobe software more than their hardware device, so moved platforms. Adobe’s motivation was largely revenge against Apple for opening up printing standards. Previously Adobe had a de facto monopoly license on these. Steve Jobs was extremely pissed off by seeing Apple get hurt for makin…
Much like Adobe did to Macs in the 1990s, WeChat has become so powerful they control the platform. Apple can’t remove WeChat because most consumers would rather change device hardware than lose access to WeChat.
Is it really the power of WeChat or the chinese government though?
When the west opened trade to China, policy experts assumed China would become more liberal like the west. Instead, the west is becoming more like China. [1, 2, 3] [1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/07/googles-web-integrit... [2] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/07/ready-for-your-e... [3] (countless more examples, especially recently...)
No one actually thinks that, it's just the line they use to justify themselves to the public. Like how Saudi Arabia has been promising amazing "reforms" for the better part of a decade.
When the west opened trade to China, policy experts assumed China would become more liberal like the west. Instead, the west is becoming more like China. [1, 2, 3] [1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/07/googles-web-integrit... [2] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/07/ready-for-your-e... [3] (countless more examples, especially recently...)
> policy experts assumed China would become more liberal No one actually thinks that, it's just the line they use to justify themselves to the public. Like how Saudi Arabia has been promising amazing "reforms" for the better part of a decade.
We had just done it to Russia successfully (short-term). Why not China?
Interesting how they'll react to X. WeChat seems to be the closest thing to an "Everything App" that Elon wants to create.
WeChat is the "everything app" because it has a government monopoly. I'm sure there was and is some organic competition but it's also obvious they picked a winner and ran with it.
When the west opened trade to China, policy experts assumed China would become more liberal like the west. Instead, the west is becoming more like China. [1, 2, 3] [1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/07/googles-web-integrit... [2] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/07/ready-for-your-e... [3] (countless more examples, especially recently...)
China is becoming more liberal in the classical sense (more money accruing to regular "new money" entrepreneurs instead of to oligarchs); they just haven't hit the "borgeoisie-funded revolt against the aristocracy" phase of liberalization yet. Give them 50 years.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Under COVID, when being able to board public transport, enter venues, etc. required showing one’s health status from one’s phone, the Chinese state facilitated that through two apps in particular: WeChat and Alipay.
That sounds like a duopoly, but it's still surprising that there was no third option at all. Are you sure they couldn't even bring printed out forms?