5 ms·

Europe has done pretty much everything the US wants, from spying on our citizens to foreign companies paying little to no tax. All you hear these days is how la

by uola 10y ago

Europe has done pretty much everything the US wants, from spying on our citizens to foreign companies paying little to no tax. All you hear these days is how lame Europe is because we don't have a Facebook and how we should all move to the overpriced small town of SV. China doesn't only have a Facebook, it has a Google, an Amazon and an Uber. Which are in many ways surpassing their US counterparts. Since when was trade ever fair? I think the bigger thing here is just that China isn't in the US sphere of influence in terms of politics, but also in terms of culture and it's treating them quite well.

seanp2k2 10y ago
Agreed that it's overpriced in terms of real estate, but I wouldn't call it small; the Bay Area is home to over 7 million: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Bay_Area https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Bay_Area The weather is also pretty nice in the South Bay (over 300 days of sunshine according to Wikipedia for San Jose). San Francisco technically gets a lot of sun, but anecdotally they get a lot of fog and shade as well, especially in certain areas of the city. There are other benefits to Left Coast living as well, but the rent is indeed high.
- stephenr 10y ago
  > Left Coast Please don't do that.
- uola 10y ago
  What can I say, Facebooks new headquarters: https://www.instagram.com/p/05d5kiF_8X/ https://www.instagram.com/p/05d5kiF_8X/ Tencents (wechat) new headquarters: http://www.kikiwangarch.com/tencent-hq/ http://www.kikiwangarch.com/tencent-hq/
tluyben2 10y ago
They have a Google in terms of making money, they don't have a Google in terms of usefulness. The search engines in China are unusable; my Chinese colleagues are far less efficient than we are because of it. When i'm sitting next to them with my SSH lynx to Google, I find answers fast which they cannot. Baidu is just only bought links (inherently bad quality) and Bing is, well, just a really bad search engine. That's not only me though; my wife and I are learning Chinese and we use songs, tv shows and movies a lot for that; when we ask 'can we use X' to the teacher (who is in Hangzhou) she always answers 'I searched but cannot find it' while the first hits on Google are it it including a video on Youtube (not in China) or Tudou (in China). Not because it's banned but because the search doesn't work. Besides that you are right; especially things they do better; they have Facebook but the messenger (Wechat) is really were it is at; I use Wechat now instead of Messenger and it is superior even when you are not in China. Mainly because it just always 'works' and it's always fast unlike Messenger. Didi is better than Uber in many ways especially for the Chinese; for foreigners it's fine but Uber is more convenient for us as support is in English and most drivers for Uber speak a bit (enough) of English in China while the Didi ones speak no English at all usually.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- djfergus 10y ago
  Thanks for the interesting observations. No surprises. In my experience, wechat is a spam monster - too many useless notifications and missing useful features like easy OTT voice calls and read receipts. I find iMessage and whatsapp (I use both hourly) vastly superior. How old is your uber/didi experience? I find both now to be mostly useless to non-chinese. I tried to get an uber to the airport in Beijing last week and would you believe there is no POI in english for "airport". Search comes up empty. This seems recent, it wasn't an issue last year when I was travelling there frequently. I agree, if you do get a valid destination the uberx drivers have enough english to find you and get you where you are going. People's uber on the other hand... its good for entertainment...
  - tluyben2 10y ago
    This was a few weeks ago. It is worse than last year but I use a lot of mapping apps to figure out which characters to use. If that does not help me I usually just ask someone on the street.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
    Uber/didi are still technically illegal for China airport pickup, and operate in a very legal grey zone, it makes sense that the software would lack that POI artificially. There are ways around it, but local knowledge, at least some Chinese skills, is needed to get around it. The taxi queue at BJS is quite reasonable most of the time, so I don't bother with didi. But this is why doing biz can be hard in China, so many business models operate in grey zones while the government lets them go on while swinging a huge axe over their head. As another example, did you know electric tricycles are illegal throughout the entire country? And China's whole new goods delivery businesses are built around these....
- seanmcdirmid 10y ago

by uola 10y ago

seanp2k2 10y ago

Agreed that it's overpriced in terms of real estate, but I wouldn't call it small; the Bay Area is home to over 7 million: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Bay_Area https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Bay_Area The weather is also pretty nice in the South Bay (over 300 days of sunshine according to Wikipedia for San Jose). San Francisco technically gets a lot of sun, but anecdotally they get a lot of fog and shade as well, especially in certain areas of the city. There are other benefits to Left Coast living as well, but the rent is indeed high.

stephenr 10y ago
> Left Coast Please don't do that.
uola 10y ago
What can I say, Facebooks new headquarters: https://www.instagram.com/p/05d5kiF_8X/ https://www.instagram.com/p/05d5kiF_8X/ Tencents (wechat) new headquarters: http://www.kikiwangarch.com/tencent-hq/ http://www.kikiwangarch.com/tencent-hq/

tluyben2 10y ago

They have a Google in terms of making money, they don't have a Google in terms of usefulness. The search engines in China are unusable; my Chinese colleagues are far less efficient than we are because of it. When i'm sitting next to them with my SSH lynx to Google, I find answers fast which they cannot. Baidu is just only bought links (inherently bad quality) and Bing is, well, just a really bad search engine. That's not only me though; my wife and I are learning Chinese and we use songs, tv shows and movies a lot for that; when we ask 'can we use X' to the teacher (who is in Hangzhou) she always answers 'I searched but cannot find it' while the first hits on Google are it it including a video on Youtube (not in China) or Tudou (in China). Not because it's banned but because the search doesn't work. Besides that you are right; especially things they do better; they have Facebook but the messenger (Wechat) is really were it is at; I use Wechat now instead of Messenger and it is superior even when you are not in China. Mainly because it just always 'works' and it's always fast unlike Messenger. Didi is better than Uber in many ways especially for the Chinese; for foreigners it's fine but Uber is more convenient for us as support is in English and most drivers for Uber speak a bit (enough) of English in China while the Didi ones speak no English at all usually.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
djfergus 10y ago
Thanks for the interesting observations. No surprises. In my experience, wechat is a spam monster - too many useless notifications and missing useful features like easy OTT voice calls and read receipts. I find iMessage and whatsapp (I use both hourly) vastly superior. How old is your uber/didi experience? I find both now to be mostly useless to non-chinese. I tried to get an uber to the airport in Beijing last week and would you believe there is no POI in english for "airport". Search comes up empty. This seems recent, it wasn't an issue last year when I was travelling there frequently. I agree, if you do get a valid destination the uberx drivers have enough english to find you and get you where you are going. People's uber on the other hand... its good for entertainment...
- tluyben2 10y ago
  This was a few weeks ago. It is worse than last year but I use a lot of mapping apps to figure out which characters to use. If that does not help me I usually just ask someone on the street.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- seanmcdirmid 10y ago
  Uber/didi are still technically illegal for China airport pickup, and operate in a very legal grey zone, it makes sense that the software would lack that POI artificially. There are ways around it, but local knowledge, at least some Chinese skills, is needed to get around it. The taxi queue at BJS is quite reasonable most of the time, so I don't bother with didi. But this is why doing biz can be hard in China, so many business models operate in grey zones while the government lets them go on while swinging a huge axe over their head. As another example, did you know electric tricycles are illegal throughout the entire country? And China's whole new goods delivery businesses are built around these....
seanmcdirmid 10y ago