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Comment by Quinner | Hacker News Reader

It's the result of protectionist government policy. The policies are protectionist not just against foreign entry but also against entry of new products into the market. The government picks technology winners. Unsurprisingly, the government doesn't do a great job of this. Infamously it mandated usage of ActiveX and Internet Explorer for banking long after ActiveX had its time in the sun (the government made this the mandate in 1996 and didn't reform it until 2021!)

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In case of Kakao Taxi vs Uber, it was Uber's unwillingness to work with existing taxi operators that killed any chance Uber had in the Korean market. Kakao (at least until they became dominant) acted more like an agent that sends additional customers to existing independent taxi drivers while Uber kept trying to find legal loopholes to bypass the taxi licensing system. S Korea is a civil law country, and its courts have no patience for actors whose entire legal strategy is to subvert the intent of the laws, and that was the end for Uber there.

To be accurate, Uber didn't abide by laws in most countries it went up against. It was a little slimy but also the taxi systems of most places were very entrenched. I remember never enjoying riding taxis in San Francisco for years, the cars were gross and the drivers were grumpy and generally shady about having their "credit card readers being broken" so they didn't have to pay the fees. Uber and a bunch of companies did and end run around those very politically entrenched systems and I certainly am happy to have clean, friendly, safe, modern rides with good tech where reviews keep things in line and payment is easy and I can share my location easily and know I'm going to end up at the right place way better.

credit card fees are insignificant compared to the fact that cash payment allows the driver to evade taxes more easily.

Exactly. Uber was shady, but that kind of shadiness and willingness to ignore laws is necessary to bring positive change in a highly corrupt society. It's a lot like Batman: when the police are completely ineffectual or corrupt and working for organized crime, you need a vigilante who ignores the laws that just protect the criminals.

However, in better-run and not-so-corrupt societies like Korea, it's not necessary and probably downright harmful.

> 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.

>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.

Credit where credit is due: Sounds like no-one really gets away with corruption in Korea. The same can’t be said for more corrupt places.

Yeah, I wouldn't go quite that far. Here's Samsung's heir, convicted in court of bribery, getting a special presidential pardon because, and I quote, he's "needed back at the helm to spearhead economic recovery post-pandemic".

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-62501514

Not sure I'd call Korea and its countless cases of political corruption with Chaebol more and more appearing to be basically running the show "not-so-corrupt".

Compared to the US, with countless cases of political corruption with Boeing and Microsoft basically running the show, I would.

I genuinely don't understand why the concept of the two countries' politics being corrupted is such a wild idea.

Yup. I dislike Uber for the way they treat their drivers but I dislike the old taxis even more for the way they treat me.

When you mention it, as a Linux user at the time I struggled a lot with the ActiveX thing… Eventually I think I gave up. I had no idea that stuff was government-mandated.

It didn't work on Wine?

Running IE in wine wasn't always the easiest thing in the world, and when you were specifically running it to try and use weird integrations even less so.

This is a very good point. I didn't think about two things: (1) Internet Explorer, and (2) custom DLL with ActiveX integration.

I heard Korea had a problematic mandatory Internet login wall specifically built for IE with ActiveX on XP, and that that made use of Linux and/or Firefox complicated.

Funnily it lead to creation of PC F2P gaming culture too for some reason.

It was government mandated but it was an attempt by their government to strengthen security at the time when they couldn't import stronger crypto. Then it became established and hard to remove.

>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...

That makes a lot more sense. Thanks for sharing this bit of historical insight.

While you're right, in the specific case of navigation apps (Google maps) or apps that need navigation data (uber), it's typically because of the Geospatial Information Management Act. High-quality mapping data isn't allowed to leave the physical borders of Korea so most foreign companies just stop trying. Nowadays it's just protectionism, but the original justification was to make it harder for north korea to aim artillery.

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