I always appreciate the CCP’s twisted sense of symbolism. They chose 6 pieces to symbolize Jack Ma having his arms, legs and head cut off, and this is what remains. Chilling.
It's just your imagination thats too vivid
Alibaba breaks itself up in six
61–70 of 321 posts
Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six
#62Great move. This will increase local competition and wages, diversify ideas and design, and make shareholders more money than as a single entity. As with Standard Oil and AT&T. The U.S. should continue investigating splitting up Alphabet, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft.
The traditional definition of a monopoly is the government issuing a grant for a business to operate exclusively. These ought not to be allowed. If there is no subsidy or special grant, it’s not a monopoly. Often these days there are subsidies or unfair grants given in some way, and the solution is to eliminate the subsidy or grant.
Never heard this before. Source?
Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not an expert on this, but from what I gather this all leads back to a power struggle between Jack Ma and Xi Jinping. Ma was ready to go public with AliPay and in the build up to it made a speech that criticised the government regulation as being out of date. This was viewed as a challenge to the governments power. Over the next few months the government moved to tighten regulations on companies like AliPay and d…
Completely OT: > Over the next few months the government [...] disappeared Jack Ma. Huh, I've never seen "disappear" being used as a transitive verb. I kinda like it and I think I'll put it in my language toolbox.
Yeah, it's informal but it used mostly for when a government illegally detains someone, often incommunicado --though historically in Latin American countries "disappearances" were a euphemism for government paramilitary forces (or revolutionary forces) taking someone behind the shed and extrajudicially executing them or in lesser cases locking them up in secret prisons. The choice of word probably stems from the stereotypical middle of the night night unwitnessed arrest. (so and so was supposed to come home at 8 but never came back)
Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
How would you split Apple? How would you split Meta (would you start charging for WhatsApp)?
Apple into hardware and software. Microsoft into OS and other software and cloud. Amazon into cloud and web store(s). Google into ads and web software that serves ads.
Why not Apple into Products and Services?
Products being - for example products being iPhone and iOS and services being iCloud, Apple Music, Apple TV+, etc.
Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six
#65Isn't this very similar to the plotline of Inception? Looks like the CPC has mastered multi-layered inception. /s
At least some countries fight monopolies, not promote them. /s
Why the /s though?
It's obvious some countries actually promote monopolies, especially when they go global.
Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think they mean the end of China’s crackdown wrt alibaba
Just checking my understanding: They prefer individual businesses not to get to big, monopolistic or dominant across multiple sectors, as this would give the business undue influence over politics? And of course they're operating on the idea that the political sphere governs the market and not that the biggest businesses should be the most powerful lobbiests. So this is an end to it because it effectively neuters the…
Limiting a company's influence (by lobbying or otherwise) has been one of the arguments for breaking up big tech elsewhere too.
Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six
#67How is this a breakup if Alibaba is just going to become a holding company owning those six new companies?
Perhaps they're transitioning to the Korean "chaebol" model with complex structures of ownership to obscure the true organizational structure?
The true structure is the government is now the holding entity.
Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six
#68It’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?
I'm not an expert on this, but from what I gather this all leads back to a power struggle between Jack Ma and Xi Jinping. Ma was ready to go public with AliPay and in the build up to it made a speech that criticised the government regulation as being out of date. This was viewed as a challenge to the governments power. Over the next few months the government moved to tighten regulations on companies like AliPay and d…
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.
Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six
#69It's interesting to contrast China's approach of not allowing business to operate within the plane of power in which the government does, vs. the United States, which has companies whose power is certainly on the level of many state governments.
I came across a comment that resonated with me and seems relevant in this context, so I saved it. It says: "The arc of communism is long and it leans towards oppressing the fuck out of people. It’s a tendency of all governmental systems. Communism rests most of its power in the hands of government without a moneyed elite to oppose them, so it tends to move to authoritarianism faster and with less resistance."
This is the idea of Republicanism: strengthen the nobility to oppose the king. It's not necessarily a bad idea, depending on who is oppressing you more at the moment. However, the nobility is always in love with it for self-serving reasons completely independent of the underlying facts so it's important to develop an independent opinion on the matter that is specific to your situation rather than jumping for every bit of self-serving speculation that (for example) single payer healthcare today will lead to gulags tomorrow, or that allowing companies to dump toxic chemicals or banks to take more risk etc will make you more free.
I'm not accusing you of making those silly arguments, but those silly arguments are a frequent end of this line of reasoning, so they are worth watching out for.
Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six
#70It’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?
Because Investors (capital I) are children with no long-term memory who think they're special. Or they have faith (misplaced IMO) that Xi will do the rational thing, which in their minds is "thing that makes money". Because China has no history of sacrificing its economy/peoples' quality of life for political reasons, or collapsing age demographics, nope it's all just one long glorious period of Deng Xiaoping-style openness (never-mind the man's direction was "hide your strength, bide your time") and over a billion potential consumers!!!
Anyone putting money into a Chinese company is betting that Xi and the CCP will allow said company to do things that make them money, and won't sacrifice said company for political gain. Good luck with that! The beatings will continue until regulation stops US investment in China altogether, and then the Investors will whine about it to no end.