Uber Slayer: How China’s Didi Beat the Ride-Hailing Superpower

This is pretty standard, we block all "cloud" ranges for end-user-facing things (antifraud, etc)

Bots on EC2 scraping and bruteforcing and whatnot, free tier being abused for free proxies

The question becomes what the consequences of that should be. Since you're arguing in favor of elaborate protectionism, that becomes a central issue.

Should Xiaomi be artificially blocked from selling smart phones in the US? Should all Huawei products be blocked? Should the policy of the US Government be to directly assist Apple versus Samsung (or any other competitor) in the US market? Should the US begin directly subsidizing immense steel production, using the US Dollar reserve currency to intentionally bankrupt China's steel producers via Fed printing to pay for it all? To what extent should the US be using the US Dollar to destroy foreign corporations to gain a competitive advantage? Or better yet, using the NSA to do so. How far should protectionism go?

Should the US use the dollar to start massive state enterprises, printing dollars to pay for it all, to buy up foreign corporations. For example, maybe the US should create a massive potash conglomerate from a state owned enterprise backed by the Fed directly. Then use some USD printing to merge up with other big potash players around the world, and use political leverage and threats to force other nations into allowing those mergers. Japan for example has been buying up its own stock market, maybe the US should go a step further than that. If China wants to compete using big state owned enterprises, why shouldn't the US respond in kind, and then some? China also directly funds non-state owned enterprises through various banking channels. Maybe the Fed should be providing 0% interest loans to US corporations to advantage them to acquire specific major foreign competitors for essentially no cost.

Should the Fed provide Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, etc. with a nearly unlimited budget to begin manufacturing all of their hardware & components in the US, along with perpetual subsidies to keep that production local? Might as well take advantage of available leverage.

If not, then why is it ok for China's government to set up intentional barriers to entry or to encourage rather drastic dumping policies in several big industries? Should foreign companies not be allowed to buy majority ownership positions in domestic US corporations? Should the US Government deny all attempts by foreign corporations to buy domestic corporations? Why is it considered ok for China to directly advantage and subsidize so many massive state enterprises, if the US and other nations aren't supposed to behave that way?

Should the US Government look the other way, while a major US entrepreneur steals tens of billions of dollars from a Chinese company, as Jack Ma did with Yahoo and AliPay? Is that the kind of protectionist playing field that is desirable?

Facebook, Twitter, Google and numerous other US companies have been directly blocked from competing in China in all sorts of ways. Which companies of China's should the US be blocking in response to that?

Because Uber invests most of their money on US soil, on US engineers, that go back into the US economy.

They just want to release an app that harvests money from Chinese consumers.

So if China can protect a local company that will clone uber, but with the difference of investing in local human capital and infrastructure, why not take that opportunity?

The pie is not a fixed size. The Chinese could produce something new and innovative instead of clones and sell those to the US, making the pie bigger for everyone.

Giving an American company where your people are, where they are going and with whom they are likely meeting and traveling was a non-starter before we confirmed every Tom, Dick and Harry at a three-letter agency has the ability to stalk their - and anybody else's - kids and ex girlfriends.