I think it’s great how these managed to thrive, despite increased competition from multinational companies. In many other countries, local tech companies seem to have become nearly irrelevant over the past decade, which is a sad to see.
However, in better-run and not-so-corrupt societies like Korea, it's not necessary and probably downright harmful.
South Korea was under varying levels of dictatorship from the Korean War until the Sixth Republic in 1987. Roh Tae-woo, the first president after authoritarian rule, was imprisoned for corruption. Roh Moo-hyun, the President from 2003-2008 was investigated for corruption and died by suicide rather than face charges. Lee Myung-bak, his successor, was imprisoned for corruption. Park Geun-hye, his successor, was imprisoned for corruption.
I don't know that South Korea is the poster child for a "better-run and not not-so-corrupt" society.
It's not a poster child, but the US sets such a low bar that SK looks great by comparison.
Note also that the US isn't so visibly corrupt at the federal level; it's at the local levels where it's really no better than the typical poster children for corrupt countries. Taxis are a completely local (municipal) issue.
>Due to restrictions on the export of cryptography from the United States, standard 128-bit SSL encryption was unavailable in Korea. Web browsers were only available to Koreans with weakened 40-bit encryption. In the late 1990s, the Korea Internet & Security Agency developed its own 128-bit symmetric block cipher named SEED and used ActiveX to mount it in web browsers. This soon became a domestic standard, and the country's Financial Supervisory Service used the technology as a security screening standard. ActiveX spread rapidly in Korea. In 2000, export restrictions were lifted, allowing the use of full-strength SSL anywhere in the world. Most web browsers and national e-commerce systems adopted this technology, while Korea continued to use SEED and ActiveX.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_compatibility_issues_in_So...
Funnily it lead to creation of PC F2P gaming culture too for some reason.
The Korean government explicitly chooses companies for these things. And those companies, Chaebols like Samsung, choose the laws.
If these Korean apps were so good, you would expect them to penetrate foreign markets. But they don't.
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/12/06/dumb-telecom-industry-ba...
Just like how British car companies collapsed when foreign competition entered the market on equal footing, these companies will disintegrate if forced to compete.
https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2010-dec-01-la-fg-south...
Dumb reasoning. Their apps are targeted at Korean life on purpose. Their app being good or bad is irrelevant.
The reason American apps penetrate the world usually is because America is a superpower that has almost colonised the web.
I live in the USA and EU, and the reason that I prefer a Samsung display in almost all cases is because it is the best product. Korea has not colonized us, but the product is often superior, so that is why I buy it.
Why is it that Korean software cannot do the same? I find it very interesting, and I mean to ask this in a very neutral/curious way.
Apps on the other hand strongly reflect the philosophy of usage, control, privacy etc, and the design aesthetic of their creators. Different countries/cultures have radically different philosophies, and old countries have aesthetics that go back thousands of years. Using apps from the creators of a different culture almost certainly causes significant friction with your own culture's philosophy and aesthetics.
To give a related example. I don't know Korea, but many in the English speaking world are marginally know of Japanese TV shows - you know with the crazy antics. Imagine that you were forced to consume only that form of TV, and how jarring that would be compared to your own philosophical and aesthetic inclinations. The same with Apps.
No way, LG displays are better.
(In case it's not obvious, there's a joke here.)
That's not the same for most internet apps.
They can do the same, they don't want to nor need to.
Love how the word "colonise" is thrown out without any thought.
Please tell us one example where America enacted a hostile takeover of a Korean site, and extracted its resources solely for the benefit of American interests.
>Please tell us one example where America enacted a hostile takeover of a Korean site
I don't think you understand what the word colonise means nor what my comment means...
The internet wasn't some terra nullius that America took over.
>(you are using the word to invoke implications of historical atrocities, etc.)
No, I'm using it to invoke it's actual definition and the meaning it holds. Not everyone is an American political weirdo.
And it is also partially owned by Softbank.
Would that indiciate that Korean software companies are only able to penetrate one economy at a time?
That would be a very weird, but interesting thing to investigate.
And I don't think it takes conspiracy theories to explain it, maybe users don't like platforms that isn't dominated by similar users of their primary language, or maybe there are something else that prevent app experiences optimized for two distinct cultures at the same time.
Having traveled extensively in these places, I always theorized it was due to UX behavior aligning well with the local languages. While the countries WhatsApp dominates speak different languages, they all use the Latin alphabet. In Russia and APJC there are many non-Latin alphabets used and those languages may also use different directions for writing/reading than Romance and Germanic languages.
With some amusing exceptions: doctors are exclusively on WhatsApp; older (60+) people are often only on WhatsApp (and pre-Microsoft Skype before that).
So I am simply surprised. My knowledge must be incredibly out of date.