This is an article about allegations of anti-competitive behavior, and China has just spent a year enacting many new rules to foster competition among their tech companies.
In many areas they went too far, and their approach to enacting the rules led to mass, unnecessary fear, but the spirit behind a lot of the changes was good. e.g. Alibaba can't ban links to competitors within their social apps.
Apple does not allow use of custom search engines, unless you pay to get on their list, or consumer has to go through hoops with extensions.
Do I need to draw more lines to make the dots connect for you?
I know nobody asked me, but personally I think your POV is right. I was listening to this podcast the other day about just this and the impression I got was "Wow, this may be good for the average Chinese person", I'm talking exclusively about the drive to enhance protections for citizens.
It's narrated by an Asian-American guy, the article is written by a Chinese guy called Ren Yi.
I only learned a few things about China, so I'm uneducated on the matter, but I think we underestimate how massive their rural population is, and how huge the rift is between the rich and poor, but like I said, I'm uneducated on the matter.
I think it's not a bad thing if China adopts EU style protections from big companies for citizens. I don't see the problem with that. If I understood correctly, the avg CN citizen is racked with debt, schools are borderline torturous, can barely afford a home, a lot of the water is leaded, the land is contaminated, mothers can't trust the domestic baby formula or anything really, huge sexism issue for women, rape is common, theft is common, scams are everywhere and a million other issues, it reminds you of the avg US citizen and their million other issues. Imagine if the avg CN citizen ends up living a healthier life than the avg US citizen, despite the huge head-start, now that would be really sad, because it would shine a light on how stagnant life is for the avg US person.
Yes, I'm no fan of China's authoritarian nature, but the rules they are enacting must be judged on their own merits. And frankly, many of them are appropriate and coming from the perspective of increasing competition.
Basic economics implies that increased competition is good for the consumer.
The place where china really misstepped was doing everything suddenly and abruptly, which sparked tons of fear and scared investor capital away from their companies.
This part is a bad outcome due to increased cost of financing/debt for their companies, less competitive on engineer comp due to lowered share price and so on.
They could have done the same regulations but with much more forward notice and detailed their thinking rather than handing down abrupt decrees
It seems the dissenters here aren't able to separate the art from the artist. It's not a view I can respect, but one I can understand.
Here's a hint, whether a regulation passes through a democratic process or through authoritarian decree, it's the same rule at the end of the day, and should be judged on its own merits.
Everybody dissenting here has provided no rebuke or detailed response, just seemingly uninformed quips. I'd rather hold discussion to a higher standard of objectivity, personally
The government of China does not want non state-owned companies to become so large and powerful that they can push back against the government. They don't want any institution powerful enough to push back - not a religion, not a publisher, not a political movement, not a business. All of those have faced breakups and shutdowns for years.
The humorous version.[1]
The network effect is so strong in some areas that you tend to end up with a monopoly or near-monopoly. This isn't good for either a communist or a capitalist society.
The US tends toward oligopoly. Three big banks, three big cell phone companies, three big drugstore chains, four big meat packers. In tech, the magic number seems to be two. Two big search engines, two big smartphone platforms, two big desktop systems, two big auction providers, two big social networks.
In many areas they went too far, and their approach to enacting the rules led to mass, unnecessary fear, but the spirit behind a lot of the changes was good. e.g. Alibaba can't ban links to competitors within their social apps.
Apple does not allow use of custom search engines, unless you pay to get on their list, or consumer has to go through hoops with extensions.
Do I need to draw more lines to make the dots connect for you?