Why Chinese Apps Are the Favorites of Young Americans

Unlike the US, where getting students to take STEM majors is like pulling teeth, there are plenty of STEM graduates in China. So much so that the supply of software engineers, for example, is huge and their salaries are depressed. This in turn, allows companies to compete without having to invest a large sum of money like you need to in Silicon Valley.

And because these tech companies can compete with anyone in the world, the West (especially the US) is starting to get nervous that China is moving up the value chain fast. They're no longer just cheap labor. In turn, politicians and the media are using every tactic possible to slow China's economy down. For example, the US has renewed interest in allying with Taiwan because the US does not want China to get access to TSMC chips. For a free market, capitalist country, the US sure does not want competition.

On Hacker News, and the general internet, it's very common to see "but they just steal" comments. Perhaps it's true in the past. Today, it's far less true because China leads in quite a few areas on advanced tech and they now produce more original research than the US.

If I could have one thing, it's for the HN community to not naively view the US vs China conflict as good (US) vs evil (China). Rather, I'd like to see this community move beyond that sort of propaganda and see the conflict as simply economics.