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Comment by seoulmetro | Hacker News Reader

>If these Korean apps were so good, you would expect them to penetrate foreign markets. But they don't.

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.

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> 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.

Now that you bring it up, I can't recall ever (knowingly) using a piece of Korean software that wasn't a game or baked into a phone's firmware. Does seem kind of odd considering how much Korean hardware there is in my life.

naver mail is good. kakao talk too

TVs for most of their existence were simple devices, with mostly a few different consumer relevant parameters, which were mostly objective.

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.

>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.

No way, LG displays are better.

(In case it's not obvious, there's a joke here.)

Yes. Samsung created the best product for all eyes.

That's not the same for most internet apps.

They can do the same, they don't want to nor need to.

> The reason American apps penetrate the world usually is because America is a superpower that has almost colonised the web.

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.

I thought about it, then I used it. It pretty much stands (not literally of course).

>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...

Agreed, I was wrong.

Nothing prevented Switzerland from colonizing the web first. If Europe was a VC friendly environment it would be ahead in everything.

This doesn't really fit with the way the US government ensured dominance of its tech sector globally in the 80s, 90s, and even early 2000s. It was not a fair competition by any stretch of the imagination and involved a lot of strong-arming by the US government abusing its leverage.

Maybe somebody else should have invented the transistor, integrated circuit, and internet first. They didn't.

As if those were sufficient or necessary. Even a passing familiarity with the history of computing would show that these had little effect. A deep understanding would reveal what actually did.

Right. Instead the US colonised the internet. What's your point?

*created

The internet wasn't some terra nullius that America took over.

You can create something and have it be colonised too.

If you created it, then you're not colonizing it in any meaningful sense of the word (you are using the word to invoke implications of historical atrocities, etc.)

You can't create all of it, that's the point. But you can create it, and colonise everything else that others create.

>(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.

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