Facebook and Google want China, but China doesn’t want them
techinasia.com
techinasia.com
More generally, I dont see how US tech companies are going to be able to have it both ways -- be both willing partners in US government policy and also non threatening to Chinese sovereignty.
Also, if China decides the only way it can keep competing is by blocking their competition, then the rest of the world will just wag their finger at them when they complain about export markets for their cultural products. If the Chinese government were smart, they would find a way to let Facebook and Google in while maintaining control over censorship AND keeping its anointed tech companies with majority market shares.
Which countries is tiktok popular in?
I can not say if that is smart or not. That question is outside of my technical sphere of competence. But I believe it's an accurate evaluation of how states will operate, as soon as these systems start being used to project power.
You can also go with debit cards if you want to, the only extra step is entering a PIN sometimes (for some purchases over some amount).
In Australia, they have it even better by having much more pervasive tap to pay in place. Why would anyone choose Alipay over tap to pay? You would have to be nuts.
* Getting from zero to accepting payments is long and complicated. Some of this can be streamlined, but how much of it is limited by anti-money-laundering regulations?
* The concept of "you can initiate a charge as long as you have about 40 bits of information, and can do so for 2-5 years or until the card is revoked" is a model doomed to fraud problems.
* There's no legal requirement that all potential legal merchants get serviced or at fair rates. See the recent discussions about payments for the porn industry; plenty of processors will not want to work with gun dealers.
* There's no solid standardization, so you can't shop around providers freely because changing who you buy from may mean you have to replace your swipe machines or rebuild your cart to talk to the new vendor's gateway of choice.
Alipay was solving a China-specific problem (credit card infrastructure and policies were never really very good), why would westerners stop using cards to awkwardly hold their phones up to QR scanners? That just isn’t going to happen. It is a sovereignty issue at all, it just doesn’t make sense. The west doesn’t have the small scale retailers that would benefit from that, everyone in retail can afford at least Square.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/28/17055088/apple-chinese-ic...
But in the US and Europe, people don't have any problems with this combination. I blame the dumbing down of people in western culture to the degree that they go "i like free stuff" when confronted with the truth about why it's free.
This isn't too different to how Facebook conquered universities where it was #2 to some other social network. Instead of trying to replace the social network at that university (A) with Facebook, it focused on all the universities (B, C, D, etc.) around that university (A) so that there would be a strong social network composed of the secondary universities (B, C, D, etc.) and that would lead students at the first university (A) to join Facebook when they made friends with students at the secondary universities (B, C, D, etc.).
Just look at how FB was abused in the last election, of course China doesn't want a third party running the show.
Further searching reveals reports that Baidu is significantly behind Google in AI, and that usability takes the backseat vs money.
I would like to see a more thorough comparison between the two.
[1] https://qz.com/593120/chinese-citizens-are-boycotting-search...
[2] https://magichoth.com/20-top-differences-between-google-and-...
as was stated by other commenter, baidu it's superior for Chinese search, same as manner it's for Korean, giggle can't get right non Latin character languages
Then why don't we just give the Chinese unfettered access to Google and 'see what they want' ...
I'd note there were articles about people griping about it being blocked at the time: https://qz.com/239810/frustrated-chinese-web-users-bemoan-ba...
Which was less than 30%.
Because my bet is that there are 100's of millions of Chinese who wouldn't mind access to Facebook or Google.
Imagine if Baidu tried to launch in the US. For most of us, we'd try it a few times for the novelty, but unless the product was knock-your-socks-off better, we'd keep getting stuck on things being a little quirky, a little unlike what we're used to, and eventually head back to Google or Bing.
It's going to take a lot of real customer data to smooth off those rough spots. Google and Facebook have run trillions of A/B tests in the English speaking world, but how many have they done in China? Yes, it's arguably just a matter of throwing money at the problem, but it still means the launch will be lackluster.
Also, I wonder how de-featured Google and Facebook would have to be on day 1 in China. This isn't a censorship thing, it's UGC and integration with local companies. Are you going to have enough advertisers to fill out things like the shopping carousels? Will Google's maps be as detailed as Baidu's cute pixel-art ones? Will any restaurant have more than four reviews?
I must be naive and/or thick because I can't think why China would want them.
Google/Facebook are used to sell things and spy on users.
China surely has plenty of other ways of doing both.
Easy, China want to use Google/Facebook to spy foreign targets.
Google withdraw from China exactly because of this.
As he cracks about “shithole” countries, China is building the infrastructure to exploit their resources. As allies in the Pacific look for leadership to contain China, we’re insulting NATO nations, who are for all intents US military vassal states.
This is even worse. China will eat up the world in a similar way in which they ate up Sri-Lanka's port. Build a ton of infra for the developing world and then once they're unable to pay for it, they camp in your country forcibly.
The debt is mounting in most countries where China has 'invested' in infrastructure. For instance in Kenya, each Kenyan is estimated to already owe the Chinese roughly $100 and counting. May not mean much in the west but certainly is a lot of debt out of the total $1000 every Kenyan owes. Even the IMF is freakishly worried about Kenya's debt for crying out loud.
The Chinese will use unethical/unfair business practices to earn wealth from the west and then use it to recolonize developing countries while screwing over every other western country. Luckily, GEOTUS Trump will be able to stop this!
The US did exactly the same, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan.
The Marshall Plan was about rebuilding a bombed-out and destroyed Europe, and it actually did that. The countries that received aid needed it desperately, didn't end up trapped by debt, and afterward entered a period of high growth and prosperity. Except in the most superficial ways, it's not really comparable to the Belt and Road initiative.
I don't think that was contingent on Marshall Plan aid. Those things are more to do with the victor taking the spoils. US policy here was more nuanced and recognized that an impoverished and devastated europe was ultimately a threat to peace.
If he's thinking of stuff like that, I think those had more to do with countries like West Germany not wanting to become countries like East Germany, due to a Soviet invasion.