Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why is China smashing its tech industry?

noahpinion.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 401 posts

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#331

Post by nebula8804 »

thedudeabides5 wrote: post #137
rakmos wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed the giant gaping time sink that is the video game industry. I also think including this in the discussion will, perhaps, emphasize the nuance of what I believe you're indirectly referencing -- the economics of how humans choose to spend their time (sometimes referred to as the "Attention Economy"). I believe literally optimizing for something such as GDP fails to take into account freedom / liberty which i…

I dunno man, you ever seen the genZs play fornite? Not sure it's a waste of time so much as training for some weird future in the computer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKd2KpGkFJ4

Maybe I'm just an old millennial but I think I'll just stick to my N64, and its 93.75 Mhz processor. :)

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#332

Post by nebula8804 »

majormajor wrote: post #118
techbio wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on this insight about weighting value and its predictive power or share a source?

I have a similar but different take on the weighting around politics. Our politicians are influence (unavoidably!) by the people who have the most time and money to spend lobbying them. Even if you reformed lobbying, this would still be the case - even if it was all just letter-writing with no money attached. Wealthy people could send way more letters than harried poor ones. So the more you have, the more influence y…

That does not seem to account for the wide disparity in outcomes among normal people in America vs many European counties like the Netherlands.

There appears to be a real corruption problem in the US that is distorting what politicians can do for poor people.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#333

Post by wombatmobile »

techbio wrote: post #259
wombatmobile wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economists and markets define the value of something as whatever someone will pay for it today. Successful parents and sage founders define value differently. They don't see dollars. They see sense.

This is the definition of value I am familiar with--whatever the buyer will pay. I am unsure what colloquial definition GP refers to as the counterpoint. Surely you aren't both suggesting sense and dollars are non-overlapping?

> Surely you aren't both suggesting sense and dollars are non-overlapping?

The difference is the perspective of time.

A quick buck versus a strategic investment.

e.g. What made sense to Page and Brin in 1998 - the algorithm that would become famous as Page Rank, had only a trivial market value at the time, whilst Yahoo was "worth" billions.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#334

Post by [deleted] »

sudosysgen wrote: post #302
jayd16 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what happens when non-Chinese software and service tech continues to dominate because China decided it wasn't important? Clearly these sectors are powerful or they wouldn't be targeted. Whats the plan to make them obsolete beyond taking Chinese software down a peg?

It will never dominate in China because of the Great Firewall, and Chinese ad-tech will never dominate abroad for similar reasons.

[deleted]

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#335

Post by robarr »

Mizza wrote: post #53
caeril wrote: post #11

> China may simply see things differently. It’s possible that the Chinese government has decided that the profits of companies like Alibaba and Tencent come more from rents than from actual value added Excellent observation, and I hope, for China's sake, that this is the reason. The United States is likely in for a long-term rude awakening when it finally realizes that an economy predicated on negative-value-add acti…

Hijacking this comment a bit, but I haven't watched real TV in a very long time but have been tuning in again because of the Olympics and Jeopardy. I'm seeing an incredible amount of ads for companies that let you gamble real money on your phone. Sometimes it's back to back to back to back commercials for online app casinos. This seems really dangerous and a sign of a tragically unhealthy and predatory economy - I ca…

It seems to be a global trend in countries where there is not proper legislation or heavy lobbying . In my country this has been happening the last four of five years and now the national football cup is now called the betsson cup and all along the matches the commentators refers to the odds and how easy it is to bet using only the app. There is a bet to make on much more than who wins and who looses: spread, number of fouls and types of plays per player and per team, and so on. There was even the chance to bet on the latest presidential election.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#336

Post by HWR_14 »

Animats wrote: post #150

China is not "smashing its tech industry". It's cracking down on private Internet companies that acquired too much power through network effects. This is completely consistent with CCP doctrine. Anything that central has to be state-owned. Xi declared this year that while digitization is important, “we must recognize the fundamental importance of the real economy… and never deindustrialize.” Right. China, remember, h…

From my understanding, Jack Ma was allowed to own whatever toys and mistresses he wanted. He could even have some outside of China so he feels safe. His mistake was thinking that the American dynamic of "money equals real power" held true in China.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#337

Post by _448 »

lasagnaphil wrote: post #186
_448 wrote: post #105

The USA tech industry did start with hard-tech. The hint is in the name "Silicon Valley". The spur in innovation in the American tech industry started with companies working on projects from the defence and aerospace industry. Along the way they lost the plot, mostly during the dot-com bubble when the investment/banking/family-office industry(that does not understand tech) got heavily involved into it to make quick m…

It's illuminating (and equally harrowing) to see how much of the fundamental technology we have today has been researched and invented by the military (the Internet is one prime example), in stark contrast to the widespread belief among today's SV techies that free market innovation is what's driving the tech.

Here is someone who is trying to spread this gospel of state led innovation for some time now:

https://www.economist.com/schumpeter/2014/02/03/startup-myth...

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/mariana-mazzucato

https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2020/09/economics...

https://www.economist.com/briefing/2021/01/16/the-case-for-m...

https://marianamazzucato.com

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#338

Post by HWR_14 »

hintymad wrote: post #322
Animats wrote: post #150

China is not "smashing its tech industry". It's cracking down on private Internet companies that acquired too much power through network effects. This is completely consistent with CCP doctrine. Anything that central has to be state-owned. Xi declared this year that while digitization is important, “we must recognize the fundamental importance of the real economy… and never deindustrialize.” Right. China, remember, h…

I think you're spot on, and the author's assessment is accurate: "China may simply see things differently. It’s possible that the Chinese government has decided that the profits of companies like Alibaba and Tencent come more from rents than from actual value added" In the perspective of Chinese government, it is simply unacceptable that a toilet ordered by the air force cost more than $20k, or the number of ship man…

> it is simply unacceptable that a toilet ordered by the air force cost more than $20k

Why do people get hung up on this? Specialty parts cost a lot.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#339

Post by hintymad »

HWR_14 wrote: post #338
hintymad wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're spot on, and the author's assessment is accurate: "China may simply see things differently. It’s possible that the Chinese government has decided that the profits of companies like Alibaba and Tencent come more from rents than from actual value added" In the perspective of Chinese government, it is simply unacceptable that a toilet ordered by the air force cost more than $20k, or the number of ship man…

> it is simply unacceptable that a toilet ordered by the air force cost more than $20k Why do people get hung up on this? Specialty parts cost a lot.

From what I learned, it’s not specialty. Congress has a law that certain percentage of military provisioning must be domestic. The military had to meet the quota by buying toilets, and someone set up a factory in the US just to supply the military, so the unit price was through the roof. This became an example of how the US manufacturing has weakened so much.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#340

Post by danieltanfh95 »

thujlife wrote: post #312
viscanti wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part of the 5 year plan outlined the strategy behind why the CCP went after DIDI? I'm genuinely curious and it might be more useful to link to the relevant parts. Some people might actually be interested in reading those and better understanding this.

anti monopoly?

Didi was caught selling user data without prior consent.

Think if Equifax got pulled for "leaking" user data

Post reply on HN