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Akamai to shut down its CDN operations in China

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Re: Akamai to shut down its CDN operations in China

#101

Post by remus »

mihaaly wrote: post #81
wafflerewire wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My enterprise sized day job is an Akamai customer. Nothing in China directly so we won't be directly impacted. As a hypothetical, if we got told that we had to switch providers to stay in a region, we'd need to rebuild pipelines, EdgeWorkers, edge caching rules, origin routing configurations and probably more I'm not aware of. Plus testing all of those changes in a non-breaking way across the entire enterprise. Along…

Sounds fragile and pretty exposed. (Also a complete layman here)

I don't think it's particularly fragile. Big systems have big dependencies, and moving those dependencies takes time if you want to minimise risk.

Re: Akamai to shut down its CDN operations in China

#102

Post by tehjoker »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #85
tehjoker wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China doesn't want to be an opium den for western powers and have their economy underdeveloped by their firms. I think that's okay and it has been paying off. That's why China is able to develop its economy to superpower status while so much of the rest of the world is locked in dependency on the whims of G7.

That’s really interesting considering China is exporting fentanyl to the USA and much of the western world today.

its really interesting how afghanistan became the world's #1 poppy producer under us occupation and it declined immediately after we left. heroin prices rose, leaving a market opportunity for fent. i still do not believe that china is necessarily the source btw. that needs proof.

you can read about an earlier iteration of us involvement in drugs in this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Politics_of_Heroin_in_Sout...

there are infamous pictures of us soldiers guarding poppies in afghanistan during the recent occupation:

https://publicintelligence.net/usnato-troops-patrolling-opiu...

Re: Akamai to shut down its CDN operations in China

#103

Post by seanmcdirmid »

Barrin92 wrote: post #97
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chinese companies don’t have to play by the rules in the same way that foreign companies do. China isn’t a rule of law country, and has explicitly stated that it doesn’t want to be a rule of law country. Instead laws are enforced selectively for whatever outcome the official branch wants at the moment (rule by law). They are perfectly willing to fine American companies when Chinese companies cheat (and not apply anyw…

>and not apply anywhere near the same enforcement to the Chinese company About two years ago China imposed regulations on its own tech sector so strict that it killed the entire "ed-tech" sector overnight and wiped out a decent chunk of the country's tech market value. What other country has done this to its own companies? The US has slapped a 100% tariff on cars, bans on Chinese hardware and software in autonomous v…

China has had 20-50% tariffs on car imports since WTO (to protect their car industry, before it was worse!), and it has been successful: they coaxed most foreign car companies into JVs where they could transfer IP. Now that their car industry is secure, to complain about protectionism from the countries they once protected themselves from is just too hypocritical.

Likewise, if you tell me America banning tiktok is unprecedented you’ve never heard of Facebook or YouTube? Again, China has no moral high ground here. If anything, I bet the Chinese government is just wondering what took us so long.

Re: Akamai to shut down its CDN operations in China

#104

Post by freedomben »

mihaaly wrote: post #81
wafflerewire wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My enterprise sized day job is an Akamai customer. Nothing in China directly so we won't be directly impacted. As a hypothetical, if we got told that we had to switch providers to stay in a region, we'd need to rebuild pipelines, EdgeWorkers, edge caching rules, origin routing configurations and probably more I'm not aware of. Plus testing all of those changes in a non-breaking way across the entire enterprise. Along…

Sounds fragile and pretty exposed. (Also a complete layman here)

It's actually the opposite. I thought the same thing before working in big enterprise though so I definitely understand how you could think that.

In reality everything takes 10x longer because things are done in a very thorough way and typically with significant redundancy (high availability). The code bases are typically shite and personally I'd rather eat nails than work on them, but they are reasonably well tested and changes are typically done very conservatively. Big enterprise devs are also really good at not breaking production. As much as I detest that environment, I do think startups in general could learn a great deal about not breaking production from the big enterprise people.

Re: Akamai to shut down its CDN operations in China

#105

Post by freedomben »

Aissen wrote: post #31
eh_why_not wrote: post #26

> All current China CDN customers must complete the transition to our Partners’ solution by June 30, 2026... Can anyone here who works in the field shed some light on why it takes a whole 1.5 years for such a change to take effect? What's involved in a CDN transition that can't be done in, say, 6 months?

It's specifically because Akamai wants to preserve its reputation amongst enterprise customers paying $$$ that it's giving such a big delay. And I can predict it won't be enough for many.

No doubt there be a lot of companies who don't finish until nearly the end. Barring legal reasons, I'm guessing there will actually be an extension because enough corps won't be ready at that point. Also would expect Akamai to offer extended support beyond that date (for a significant cost) on a customer by customer basis.

Re: Akamai to shut down its CDN operations in China

#106

Post by seanmcdirmid »

tehjoker wrote: post #102
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s really interesting considering China is exporting fentanyl to the USA and much of the western world today.

its really interesting how afghanistan became the world's #1 poppy producer under us occupation and it declined immediately after we left. heroin prices rose, leaving a market opportunity for fent. i still do not believe that china is necessarily the source btw. that needs proof. you can read about an earlier iteration of us involvement in drugs in this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Politics_of_Heroin_in_So…

Ya, I don’t see that lasting very long since China production is too cheap to compete with. They’ve basically taken over the whole illegal drug business here in the USA (opium has never been a very big drug in the states). I don’t really know what China is trying to prove though, is the PLA involved or is it just a few big Tianjin SOE pharmaceuticals?

Re: Akamai to shut down its CDN operations in China

#107

Post by gopher_space »

flaminHotSpeedo wrote: post #74
soared wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not remotely accurate. Plenty of large tech companies still play in China. The difficulties are very high but if you are big enough the huge market size it’s still very profitable. I don’t think google/etc are in China for its slave labor.

It's not just tech companies, many entertainment companies (e.g. video games, media) do the same, even at the risk of alienating or angering Western customers

I'll never buy a Blizzard product again. Fortunately they’ve made this very easy for me.

Re: Akamai to shut down its CDN operations in China

#108

Post by bee_rider »

Xenoamorphous wrote: post #71
iamacyborg wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* wants the publicity from being the president to ban them

Genuine question as someone not from the US, wouldn’t that make a significant part of a generation mad at Republicans? Some who might be close to voting age or might even be able to vote already.

Trump isn’t up for re-election, and he’s isn’t interested in the long term performance of the Republican Party (he only became a Republican because that’s the party whose primary he could win).

Re: Akamai to shut down its CDN operations in China

#109

Post by tehjoker »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #106
tehjoker wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its really interesting how afghanistan became the world's #1 poppy producer under us occupation and it declined immediately after we left. heroin prices rose, leaving a market opportunity for fent. i still do not believe that china is necessarily the source btw. that needs proof. you can read about an earlier iteration of us involvement in drugs in this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Politics_of_Heroin_in_So…

Ya, I don’t see that lasting very long since China production is too cheap to compete with. They’ve basically taken over the whole illegal drug business here in the USA (opium has never been a very big drug in the states). I don’t really know what China is trying to prove though, is the PLA involved or is it just a few big Tianjin SOE pharmaceuticals?

It's not lasting it's over. The US pulled out of Afghanistan in 2021 and the Taliban vastly reduced poppy cultivation. That's what caused a sharp rise in heroin prices and a demand for a substitute.

I haven't looked into fent, but given the information is coming mainly from US security agencies who consider china an enemy state, I need to see physical evidence. I won't accept their say-so. This narrative about China smells suspiciously too perfect. China was the subject of 100 years of humiliation, was drugged to death by Americans, British, and others. Now the US is claiming they're doing it to us? The abuser is suddenly claiming we are the symmetric victim? Fishy story.

Re: Akamai to shut down its CDN operations in China

#110

Post by mayama »

tokioyoyo wrote: post #28
ghaff wrote: post #9

I see a lot of US organizations decoupling stuff from China, especially if it's fairly peripheral, such as pulling back from running events there. But there's also a lot of more fundamental second-sourcing and the like.

Well depends on the organizations. Some of the organizations aren't actually pulling away from China, as they're just getting outcompeted in terms of price/quality by local companies. To my understanding, government is trying to convince people that "Chinese products can also be luxury", and some people are switching.

Or it could be part of general trend of splitting off internet and creating a firewalled chinese internet. PRC is explicitly favoring this outcome for decades now with explicit incentives via legal, financial and social routes.
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