Who were you speaking to? I just recently managed to convince my (Chinese) wife that trying and failing her own online business would be better than working as someone's slave in an industry she doesn't even like. And our friends here are too busy trying to live on the small monthly salaries they get to even consider taking a risk with a startup.

...let alone the fact if you have a successful internet startup, someone with more resources will make a carbon copy of it and there's not much you can do to shut it down.