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Alibaba breaks itself up in six

economist.com

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Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#231

Post by infamia »

lookACamel wrote: post #199
duxup wrote: post #6

It’s always hard for me to understand the why when it comes to China’s government. “Investors cheer the move as signalling the end of China’s tech crackdown” If this is government action then why would this be the “end” of government involvement?

Ending a crackdown does not mean the end of involvement. Involvement can be neutral or positive, a crackdown is negative.

Either way, it means more levers of control by the CCP, which is not positive if you're trying to run a business. It introduces more uncertainty if nothing else, which is a negative.

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#232

Post by fortuna86 »

Animatronio wrote: post #131
fortuna86 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like Huawei. China wants them to have a monopoly everywhere on earth. Alibaba had nothing to do with being a monopoly, it became a power base to rival the government so it had to be broken and scattered.

Huawei, Gazprom, Google, Facebook, probably each G7 country has a champion it wants to rule the field.

Does any western government activity promote monopolies abroad and threaten consequences if such monopolies are fought against, all while accepting state-backed monopoly at home?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-threatens-retaliation-aga...

To recap, the Alibaba break up wasn't about a monopoly, it was about a rival power base to the CCP that couldn't be allowed to exist.

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#233

Post by viewtransform »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #208
esafak wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which faction? I am curious.

From what I’ve both read and experienced on a brief trip to Shanghai, it seems there are two main factions - the Beijing faction and Shanghai faction. The latter is more capitalist and chill, the former more authoritarian. It’s probably more complicated though, with multiple sub factions around different leaders in the CCP. Maybe someone with deeper knowledge can elaborate.

This writeup by a former CCP member now living in exile explains the current functioning of the CCP.

The Weakness of Xi Jinping: How Hubris and Paranoia Threaten China’s Future https://archive.is/d9OsU

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#234

Post by kkarakk »

voisin wrote: post #209
lanternfish wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably because Alibaba - the challenger that started this crackdown - is now slain. On a political level, there are only so many Chinese companies with enough power to actually threaten the CCP, and Alibaba is probably enough of an example to keep them in line - further crackdowns are probably unnecessary.

Must be nice for international companies to know that Chinese companies will always be restrained from becoming too large. It’s like they have to fight with one arm tied behind their back - get too big and your own government will cut you up.

xi jinping has been criticised for this but he's in his "my legacy lives on forever" phase of life. another decade and he's done - just consolidating power for his family at this point.

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#235

Post by littlestymaar »

toyg wrote: post #92
SkyMarshal wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, one of Ma’s last public appearances was at an American conference, maybe TechCrunch but I’m not sure, where he said in an on stage interview something to the effect of, “I’m not afraid of the CCP”, in relation to recent revelations he was a CCP member. Then he got disappeared shortly after. He was really clueless about what kind of org he was dealing with.

One doesn't need to be clueless in order to lose a power struggle. He might have been betrayed, he might have overestimated the resources he could fully count on, he might have simply been backing a faction in the party that ended up losing. Xi Jinping went as far as kicking out of the public congress a previous president, which was unprecedented; who knows what else he's capable of.

> One doesn't need to be clueless in order to lose a power struggle.

But one has to be clueless in order to start a power struggle with Xi. He's not like the old school CCP head at all (not even Mao), he's much more of an all-powerful tyrant like Stalin was. Starting a power struggle against such a ruthless despot is clueless.

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#236

Post by kkarakk »

ssnistfajen wrote: post #227
shp0ngle wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The strict law about what can and cannot Chinese say, share, and see online doesn't help this. Yes there are tons of nonsense online about China. But it is not helped by the total dragnet there is over there. And by the fact that some of the over-the-top stuff about China is indeed true. I mean Jack Ma really _was_ disappeared right after the speech.

Tim Cook or Sundar Pichai also step off the stage after finishing speeches. Does that mean they have been "disappeared"? They have a private life in case you aren't aware. Acknowledging the fact that the CCP is meddling with private sector businesses is not an excuse to spout misinfo.

jack ma disappeared from the entire world - not a single photo could be found by people legitimately asking where he was. not even a publicist "he's holidaying in this country at the moment" could be had. if he was a reticent person maybe it could be excused but he's been a jet setter for a decade now with tons of social appearances.

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#237

Post by insane_dreamer »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #198
SkyMarshal wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, one of Ma’s last public appearances was at an American conference, maybe TechCrunch but I’m not sure, where he said in an on stage interview something to the effect of, “I’m not afraid of the CCP”, in relation to recent revelations he was a CCP member. Then he got disappeared shortly after. He was really clueless about what kind of org he was dealing with.

I think characterizing it as Clueless make some overly broad assumptions on Ma's motivations. It could be as simple as he disagrees with the CCP policy. For example, we don't typically look at human rights or anti-war protesters and call them Clueless, even when governments Crackdown on them

Clueless in understanding the consequences of disagreeing with CCP policy. He should have known what would happen.

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#238

Post by kkarakk »

rejectfinite wrote: post #156
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why don’t people buy those over apple products? If you change Apple into that, I would be sad because now you’ve taken away a choice I had before.

>Then why don’t people buy those over apple products? But they do lil bro/sis Lenovo Thinkpad, Dell Presicion/Latitude or HP Elitebook for companies aint cheap. Gaming laptops. Android phones, the top ones. etc

tbf none of those have maintained quality for as long as apple have. since iphone 1 apple has maintained a superlative quality of phone - nothing on android side comes anywhere close for the same amount of time.

i prefer just being able to say "buy an iphone/macbook" whenever i think what has quality rather than having to research options for 3 hours on what's the current state of the art in tech.

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#239

Post by seanmcdirmid »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #226
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just want to avoid going back to the time before Apple products were nice and relatively affordable, I hated buying a crappy Windows PC every other year and never being satisfied with it. Apple has transformed the entire industry twice in my lifetime, and I get really nervous when people say they should be forced to be just like another PC maker, and I should be forced to live again under a market that I absolutely…

it's an interesting topic (whether Apple's monopolistic behavior has produced any good), but again, entirely orthogonal to the underlying question, whether Apple is behaving monopolistically (they are). in the amount equal to how much you like any such benefits, other people dislike the downsides of monopolistic behavior, so we decided that it's bad even if maybe some good comes with the bad

I just disagree that Apple is behaving monopolistically. Dictionary definition of monopolistic behavior:

> having or trying to have complete control of something, especially an area of business, so that others have no share: She did not consider the fine a sufficient deterrent against monopolistic practices by big producers. The company is accused of monopolistic behavior.

Apple has completely control over Apple products and services, but not of the entire market, since there are plenty of other choices available in every market category they operate in. People who say they dislike Apple for its monopolistic behavior tend to seem to dislike Apple in general, and would rather not anyone buy their products, rather than just making the personal choice to not buy their products (because they indeed have many other choices and so can avoid buying Apple products and services).

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#240

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #239
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's an interesting topic (whether Apple's monopolistic behavior has produced any good), but again, entirely orthogonal to the underlying question, whether Apple is behaving monopolistically (they are). in the amount equal to how much you like any such benefits, other people dislike the downsides of monopolistic behavior, so we decided that it's bad even if maybe some good comes with the bad

I just disagree that Apple is behaving monopolistically. Dictionary definition of monopolistic behavior: > having or trying to have complete control of something, especially an area of business, so that others have no share: She did not consider the fine a sufficient deterrent against monopolistic practices by big producers. The company is accused of monopolistic behavior. Apple has completely control over Apple prod…

your post does a good job of explaining how Apple's behavior is monopolistic, by that very definition, even despite not controlling the entire market: the "something" need not be the entire market

as for like vs dislike, the company isn't important enough for me to form such personal opinions about it, they're simply a company engaging in monopolistic behavior just like any other company engaging in monopolistic behavior

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