China’s Internet Boom Starts to Fade | Hacker News Reader

China’s Internet Boom Starts to Fade

bloomberg.com

26 pointsshahocean22 comments

"The Shanghai Composite rose 0.7 percent to 3,641.83 at 9:48 a.m. local time, heading for a ninth day of gains, the longest winning streak since 2007."

I like the use of the term "winning streak". No need to pretend it's more than gambling*

I hate articles that perpetuate the notion that share price is the ultimate raison d'etre.

*this is not supposed to be an absolute statement. it is to be taken with a pinch of salt!

Further, it's unhealthy how the news reports the days stock movement like it's almost the daily health of the ecomomy. It feels like it creates this incredibly short term thinking over a fairly a arbitary number.

Supposedly, they are finally cracking down on inside trading and the market will become more of a reliable place to make money without guangxi. So it is more like gambling with fair odds vs. having the cards all stacked against you.

>Cracking down on insider trading, no longer needing guangxi

Wumaos are on HN now?

Calling a contribution astroturfing is a fairly serious accusation, and signing up a new account to do it shows that I doubt you believe that.

Never was accused of being a wumao before.

I did say supposedly, I'm not sure if its really true or not. I'm not putting my money into the SH stock market yet even though I have plenty of RMB in the bank uninvested.

Wechat is literally used by everyone in remotely major Chinese cities (say all cities with a population of 3+ million) these days. People that meet ask "Do you have wechat?" instead of "What's your phone number?". Sure, it might not generate any money, but suggesting they are fading is absolutely patently false in my experience: they have virtually achieved total market dominance.

> they have virtually achieved total market dominance.

Of the PRC market.

http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/enterprises/article...

I would say it without "virtually"

This article is mostly about stock market numbers. Ok, its from Bloomberg.

I don't think its useful to use words like boom and fade when your writing about companies that have been doing well for 10+ years: Alibaba, Sina/Weibo, Tencent, Baidu, Tudou.

Hard to say what kind of future Sina/Weibo and video streaming companies Youku Tudou could have...I guess similar to Twitter and Youtube. Alibaba and Tencent could have a good shot at being world leading banks over the next 10 years among the things they already do well. The stock market may not see its fair shake on these deals, but users in and out of China are getting benefits.

China's Internet companies are growing fine from my perspective as a consumer of online services and as a person building companies here. Software development and management gets better year over year. In the IT space, there seems to be organic evolution of treating employees better. More people are practicing taking risk in creating companies.

Bloomberg is blocked in China, so it has to be credible (otherwise, why would the Chinese government block it?).

Most of these internet properties are practically restricted to operating in the sheltered mainland China market, so they'll have a different future from the more international Twitter and Youtube. The Chinese market is cut throat, and all the clones that operate here have super small margins as a result. WeChat announced just this week that they were giving up on international expansion.

The question is: can these services exist in China alone, without the more stable revenue streams that come with a more diverse international market?

> China's Internet companies are growing fine from my perspective as a consumer of online services and as a person building companies here. Software development and management gets better year over year. In the IT space, there seems to be organic evolution of treating employees better. More people are practicing taking risk in creating companies.

I agree. Gone are the days of making your software developers clock in with time cards and mandatory Saturday work days...well, at least at most companies.

> why would the Chinese government block it

So far as I remember, Bloomberg reported some taboos about corruption scandal of The First Family of China.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/04/us-china-censorshi...

That's not completely true. They actually also pulled a very big story to not endanger their financial data business in the country:

- http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2014/03/bloomberg-editor...

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/d121fd70-49f2-11e3-9a21-00144...

They lost a lot of credibility when covering on Chinese matters due to this incident.

It could be that they were fed with rumors made by enemies as the journalists of foreign media are the first ones to know many things in China. e.g. BBC was among the first ones to know the fall of the Gang of Four (not to be mistaken for the GoF of design patterns).

Well, to be fair, only CNN isn't blocked now. Everyone else just aren't harmonious enough.

Harmony has been replaced by Dream of China already. lol

And the New Norm.

Exactly. A news sources that isn't intimidated by the Chinese government is the best source for news about China.

> Bloomberg is blocked in China, so it has to be credible

Actually, many quack sites are also blocked in China. Along with many political neutrals ones (like Ruby Gems). As a Chinese who has been bypassing the GFW a lot for years, my impression is that it is virtually a true random process that cannot be predicted in any way.

> why would the Chinese government block it

Viruses have some credibility, otherwise why would anti-viruses want to block them?

I don't think so.

I think there is another boom that is fading, a potentially more serious one that is China's housing market. It is flooded with supply. Capital flight to the West, with property developers defaulting on debt, li kai shing (richest HK dude) dumping all his assets in China a while ago. The fading or faltering of the tech sector could be related but who knows, this is a government that likes to keep a blanket over everything.

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