Why China is giving away its tech for free | Hacker News Reader

Why China is giving away its tech for free

economist.com

25 pointsjcartw32 comments

Open articleView on HN

This is in queue, will update with final URL if successful.

Edit: This just jumped from #7 in queue to #2380 in queue. I should have used another service.

https://archive.ph/wip/hOIIa

If/when it completes, it should be here:

https://archive.ph/hOIIa

Didn't know there was a queue, how does it work? Readers upload the paywalled article? Does that mean uploaders can alter the version of the article we end up seeing?

I checked archive.ph, and they did not have a copy of this article.

I requested that they make a copy of it. It is currently #11 in queue.

Hopefully, they will be able to copy the whole article.

No, I am not able to alter what it archives.

Just use bypass paywall clean (firefox extension, desktop (win I assume everywhere), android)

https://gitflic.ru/project/magnolia1234/bpc_uploads (or check X/Nitter)

Still 545 in the queue. Ouch.

Looks like the Economist has discovered a way to prevent archive.ph from functioning.

This link is now working.

https://archive.ph/HCAQj

Commoditize the compliment at a massive scale? Make everything free and then only the raw natural resources become what makes a country valuable, instead of the output of their knowledge work.

But that's essentially the bright future drawn by American AI companies.

As on copyright vs no copyright, I agree with the view of Bunny Huang. Chinese laxity with copyright doesn't destroy the advantage of the first mover - it just puts a limit to it. Basically if you want to be on top, you need to keep innovating non-stop, you can't rest on your laurels.

Systems relying on copyright allow companies to alienate engineers' work, that's how Oracle ended up with more lawyers than engineers (even if that's just a meme). Systems where knowledge is distributed freely (including the open source community) gives power to engineers.

Shouldn't we rather ask why the West is incessantly copyrighting everything?

How many rent seekers and leeching lawyers and advertisers our economy and consumers can suffer?

What's wrong with us?

Term limits and age ceilings for Congressional reps would go a long way in solving this problem.

Copying takes negligible amounts of energy. It is only a matter of time. Copyright is doomed to fail.

But it s not , it has made a resurgence and piracy is way down. (Except if you re big digital tech, you are allowed to use anything any way you want)

Its lawyers forcing copyright to stay alive. But it isn't sustainable is what I mean. A lot of TV is free now (with ads), media is less profitable using their old system.

The future is open, they're just buying time. Piracy can never end because copyright is fictitious.

See, I could set up a system where I charge you for air by tracking your every breath, but that would be stupid since air is just available. There is a way tho.

Rather, capitalism will most likely look towards changing technology standards and softwares environments to serve their purpose.

Forget about downloading applications and looking at source code, the only way to use mass production computers will be through their neutered means: - Only approved softwares from approved "markets"/"app stores" - Settings? "Nah that's for experts" - Ad blocking? "That's a serious crime" - Different operating system? "You can't change that"

It's not enshittification its capitalism.

A major distinction is that someone has to actually produce the content you want to consume, unlike air (though we are trying to make clean air more scarce), which is why no one owns air.

How is software, music, or any other easily copied product created and distributed under your system?

Patronage, crowdsourcing and crowdfunding, volunteering. Anything that doesn't require putting a policeman, either real or virtual, behind every users back.

Sure, that's worked out super well for open source software creators over and over, and they're not taken advantage of in any way.

People usually avoid getting taken advantage of. Yet, somehow open source software seems to only been growing. So maybe they aren't taken advantage of and something is wrong with your mental framework if that's your perception.

The same way a lot of cool video content/research/products are: crowd source.

Even air can be monetized if you have the right legal team and tech. And we're all random working class people who can't afford a good lawyer even when we need it so... go figure.

Copying is built into all of our hardware/software. To keep extending copyright you have to either end privacy or neuter hardware/software.

So people can create digital things but have no permission to control how their creation is consumed or used? And only digital things have this limitation?

Sounds like a recipe for many people to avoid sharing their digital creations with others. And your claim that those are the only two ways to give creators some control over their creations is absurd.

That IS the wonder of the digital age. Limits are artificial. Sharing is defacto.

A new world is struggling to be born; this is the time of monsters.

Capital WILL neuter all software and hardware to make their reality happen. Capital WILL make more and more invasive systems if it means a whole industry can stay alive. They can lobby, we cant. They have the money to influence, we dont. We have voices, but why would they listen to voices when they have profits?

Voting with your dollar is the biggest lie out there if you live in a monopoly system where you only get a few options or if you can't afford anything else. They are literally building digital prisons but people say its fine because we can choose the size of the cell and the color of the walls.

... "but economist is not giving away its articles"?

From the snippet I can read looks like open source is a authoritarian thing

It is about destroying the industry which the West have a stronghold in. Giving it away for free, in the name of Open source also attract a lot of "common interest", those from Europe who want to break free of US, and those from US who wants US to fail, and companies who simply want another company to fail so they could gain competitive advantage. And China is very happy to help.

It has been blatantly obvious for the past 10 plus years yet most still see it as if it is new.

What about those who want specifically AI oligopolies to fail?

And this is bad for everyone except US gigacorporations how?

It is the US when promoting the industry and « the West » when trying to generate external support.

Substituting « the US » for « the West » on HN clarifies a lot of things.

I would rather we stop talking about the West, it does not mean much anymore.

Can you share examples from the past 10 years?

Think: How did they target all of those Iranian scientists?

Most likely through their phones. They can just track you if they wanted to. Everybody knows it. This sentiment is part of why the USA will lose the propaganda war.

There is no amount of propaganda the USA can make to remedy this reality.

What on earth are you talking about?

Is your argument that the Chinese will win a propaganda war concerning the surveillance state?

Yeah, in a sense.

The US' software domination has really spooked a lot of people and nation states. No one really trusts US tech companies.

And sure, "everybody spies", but that in and of itself will bring a lot more competition and privacy focus, hopefully.

China will take advantage of that sentiment. They don't have to win the war personally, just the US has to lose it. India is already trying to develop its own phones, China will only keep going.

No one really trusts US tech on a global scale.

What "stronghold"? The science of LLMs is widely known, with everyone adding new small tricks everywhere. The main moat so far has been the availability of compute, and that's a leaky moat because inevitably more companies will find enough compute or make snappier models, or simply take more time to train them.

There is no secret sauce or moat , they ve been saying that for years, and it's still true. Being number 2 in the race is a losing position, so china probably thought they might as well give it away

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