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Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

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Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#501

Post by leereeves »

amrit3128 wrote: post #494
QuesnayJr wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point you're just openly shilling for the CCP. The CCP killed millions of people through incompetence, and then they had the brilliant idea of copying the exact development model of the Asian Tigers. It's their previous incompetence that's the reason that they haven't already caught up with South Korea.

Millions? Please. CCP as it's now was created after reforms by Deng. Most people died due to Mao. CCP back then was only Mao loyalists. CCP endorsed Mao only to gain public legitimacy as the ruling party, since back then China was still a poor country prone to revolts and extremist ideas.

> CCP as it's now was created after reforms by Deng.

Their policies changed, so they're no longer responsible for their own history?

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#502

Post by graemep »

holoduke wrote: post #465
AuthorizedCust wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell your neighbors, friends, and government bureaucrats about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Let me know how that goes.

Is that all you can find? Pretty empty list. I can probably create a long list of atrocities done by the west last 5 years alone.

That is the point. You can create the list openly and without fear.

You can create a long list of Chinese atrocities, but mentioning even one will get you into a lot of trouble.

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#503

Post by graemep »

coldtea wrote: post #288
mlsu wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely true. But China’s industrial dominance is also the government immiserating its people, just in a different way. Domestic consumption in China is famously low, work culture is famously bad (996,etc). And this is because of what their government, not the people of China, have chosen to do.

> But China’s industrial dominance is also the government immiserating its people Didn't they bring hundreds of millions out of poverty, and built amazing cities and facilities in the past 30 years? > Domestic consumption in China is famously low Compared to what, the US? Compared to China is at a historical high, isn't it? And they're doing quite well even compared to like 70% of the world and rising.

> Didn't they bring hundreds of millions out of poverty, and built amazing cities and facilities in the past 30 years?

A lot of that was the result of stopping doing the damage they had done in previous five decades that resulted in such a high proportion of their population living in poverty.

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#504

Post by graemep »

faitswulff wrote: post #335
UltraSane wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China isn't bad, the CCP is.

That simplistic characterization is still essentially "China-bad." The CCP is the same government responsible for lifting historically unprecedented numbers of people out of abject poverty. Does it make up for other human rights violations? No. But "CCP bad" flattens a complex and powerful political organization into a fairy tale boogeyman.

> The CCP is the same government responsible for lifting historically unprecedented numbers of people out of abject poverty.

The CCP also put most of those people into such abject poverty from the 50s onwards. They give up on communism and thereby reversed the problems caused by communism like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#505

Post by thephyber »

Robotbeat wrote: post #89
sen wrote: post #13

I’ve owned a lot of Gopro cameras, having done video capture for a variety of motorsports, and they just got too expensive for what you get. You can be more expensive if you’re better, or you can be worse if you’re cheaper, but they’re both the downsides while living purely off brand recognition. They also blew up in a time where there wasn’t any real competition. Sony had action cameras but they were bulkier and exp…

GoPro is a US company designed in U.S. with manufacturing in Thailand, China, and Mexico. Insta360 is a Chinese company designed in Shenzhen and built there, too. People think this doesn’t matter, but GoPros are used all over in aerospace. If we replaced the brand with Insta360, that puts a big attack vector all over the place. A similar pattern happened with drones with DJI, intentionally killing all non-Chinese dro…

This is written like an American who is both ignorant of cybersecurity, American politics, and of the advantages that the US has benefitted from since at least WW2.

The core points are:

  - we can't trust a connected GoPro device any more than a connected DJI device

  - Just because a device is developed in China doesn't make it a vulnerability.

  - Just because a device is made in the US doesn't make it resistant to vulnerabilities.

  - US politicians don't have any incentive to tell us the truth. Because of the nature of national security, they could completely lie about any accusations of Chinese involvement and we would never know, especially now that the US president fired anyone who resists his demands for fealty.

  - GoPro was first to market but stopped adding value once they IPOed. US public companies depending on IP protections / rent seeking rather than cutthroat competition is the core reason DJI is beating GoPro, not Chinese government subsidies to the sector.

  - China's middle and upper classes are far larger than the US's. Similarly, they are training more college grads. China also has more companies being created and more creative destruction than the US. It doesn't matter if we build a better v1.0 product because their innovation engine is moving at least as fast as ours.

  - the US has had a 70 year head start on "a near zero cost of capital". Being the west's financier after WW2 and later the world's reserve currency.
I don't pity a US company because it chose not to compete with a Chinese company despite starting from an advantage.

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#506

Post by vkou »

QuesnayJr wrote: post #492
vkou wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> government policy is now making Chinese consumers poorer than they otherwise would be Right, that sort of thing never happens over here. We don't give the rich tax breaks while robbing the middle class (and saddling it with mountains of debt that will be coming due in their future), we don't print money hand over fist to fund idiotic wars and other vanity projects, and we don't do everything in our power to prevent…

If governments introduced a whataboutism sin tax, they could solve budget deficits overnight.

Let's look at the thread of discussion.

> Assertion that China has brought incredible prosperity to its people.

> Complaint that actually, China's economic policies that brought that prosperity are... Structurally robbing its working class.

> Observation that America, which, presumably, is the model for the best, most evolved, and un-improvable structure for its economy is also structurally robbing its working class, with no roadmap for course-correction from it. (And it's doing it for purposes that are not exactly developing the nation!)

> "That's Whataboutism!"

The complaint in #2 is only relevant as a relative comparison. China's economics structurally rob its working class? Okay, let's all agree that's the case - but rob it compared to what? The unchecked late-stage corporatism that we're practicing? The excesses of the industrial revolution in past centuries? It's bad compared to what, exactly? Some idealized strawman utopia, where no economic planning or monetary policy or deficit spending or consolidation of economic power exists? Do you have a roadmap for getting to that one?

The observation in #3 incredibly relevant. If you're not making a relative comparison of China's economy, you need to make an absolute analysis of it... And on an absolute analysis, it has done an incredible job of lifting hundreds of millions of people out of crushing poverty, and into first-world lifestyles, in only a few decades. All the central planning - control of its exchange rates, its monetary and debt and lending policy, it's focus on exports and fundamentals and R&D and education is exactly what has brought that prosperity about.

Meanwhile, the only thing our central planners, here at home are good at figuring out [1] is how to widen the gap between the haves, and the have-nots.

---

[1] I am being a bit too harsh, the Fed does a good job given its mandate.

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#507

Post by thephyber »

simplisticelk wrote: post #431
coldtea wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But China’s industrial dominance is also the government immiserating its people Didn't they bring hundreds of millions out of poverty, and built amazing cities and facilities in the past 30 years? > Domestic consumption in China is famously low Compared to what, the US? Compared to China is at a historical high, isn't it? And they're doing quite well even compared to like 70% of the world and rising.

Yes, their system has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, but government policy is now making Chinese consumers poorer than they otherwise would be in order to support domestic industry. It seem’s to be for geo-strategic reasons rather than in the interests of the Chinese people, it’s also probably unsustainable.

> but government policy is now making Chinese consumers poorer than they otherwise would be

What country has perfect government policy?

The US has atrocious government policies. Costs of college, cost of healthcare insurance, the reason so many uninsured people use the ER as their primary medical usage, tax policy prioritization of capital reinvestment over wage earnings, caring for the environment over affordable housing, etc are all problematic policy outcomes which make the average person poorer.

They are also unsustainable.

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#508

Post by graemep »

orthoxerox wrote: post #498
oneshtein wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many eastern europeans who had good life in soviet block have nostalgia, however, Ukraine fights with all it power to prevent returning back to soviet block, because majority have very unpleasant memories of soviet times and dozens of millions murdered by soviets.

Ukrainians were the Soviets. It's like Scotland complaining about British colonial policy.

That is not a good analogy. Scotland voluntarily formed a union with the rest of the UK and played a disproportionate role in colonialism. Ireland would be a better one.

The weakness in the GP's argument is that Russia is not the Soviet Union, nor is it communist.

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#509

Post by thephyber »

Gravityloss wrote: post #95

Many years ago had my first Gopro camera that seriously overheated, sent it for repairs, they said there was nothing wrong with it. It literally turned too hot to handle after taking a few clips and wouldn't work. I think there was some serious hardware issue that caused it to then drain the whole battery. Gave the brand a second chance some years ago. Couldn't export my videos from the app, it always hanged. So I co…

It's still an issue with the newest generation cameras. If you record at the highest resolution and FPS, the camera can't shed the heat fast enough.

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#510

Post by thephyber »

stevage wrote: post #377
arjie wrote: post #281

It’s the classic situation. China can outcompete all this stuff. It doesn’t really matter. Roomba, GoPro, they’re all going to be crushed by Chinese manufacturers. You just can’t get the margins to work anywhere else and if you do the R&D you’re a sucker. I’ve had a few GoPros and a few GoPro 360s. I also had Roombas so you can blame me as the brand killer.

Is GoPro not manufactured in China?

Some in China, but also Thailand and Mexico. They seem to be playing whack-a-mole with manufacturing contractors and changes to tariff policy.
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