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Facebook is riding in on its royal horses trying to connect (read: own the primary means of communication) the world like all the classically imperialist wester

by tomc1985 8y ago

Facebook is riding in on its royal horses trying to connect (read: own the primary means of communication) the world like all the classically imperialist westerners before them. The first thing they teach you in international business and/or marketing is that cultural considerations will destroy you if you do not devote effort to addressing them. If, in building a hyperlocal product (like facebook), you do not take the time to understand your local markets, then they will move in ways that you don't understand and you may not be able to control. Usually at your peril. edit: as an example.. an international trade professor told us a story about how one of his expat factory managers had an affair with a local girl in a small town in a strongly Buddhist east-asian country. When word of this got out the woman's family raised royal hell for the factory and their operations and the situation was threatening to run the company out of town. Professor said the manager was given a choice: either marry the girl to assuage the locals or leave. (He chose to leave)

_vertigo 8y ago
Wonder how it would have gone over if Facebook had just said from the outset, “We’re not entering Asian markets yet because they’re too culturally different than us.” Bet people would have really liked that.
- intended 8y ago
  “We will be gradually entering markets as we develop products sensitized to the needs of our hyper local users.” That Would have sold like iPhones.
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  That does amusingly sound very stereotypically Japanese corporation and the annoyingly common practice of ignoring viable overseas markets and demands out of a misguided sense of exceptionalism.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    Isn't it their products? Why should they sell them to markets they don't want to sell them to? Because of those markets' misguided sense of entitlement?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
beaconstudios 8y ago
I mean, they do some pretty distasteful stuff but saying that providing an international communications platform is imperialist is just beyond silly.
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  Sounds like the communist usage of imperialism where anything not part of the nation, them, or their fellow travelers is imperialist even if it is better for the people and noncoerceive because they disrupt the native one. Even if it is say actual honest nongouging medicinal care displacing hedge practitioners who were themselves exploitative. While outsiders looking to make money have a long unfortunate history of doing bad things it is absurd to call them all imperialist or even all bad. Brings to mind a related observation that the USSR and most 20th century nominal communisms were fascism in communism's skin in practice but that is highly contentious from at least the two extreme sentiment ends on the subject.
  - beaconstudios 8y ago
    > Brings to mind a related observation that the USSR and most 20th century nominal communisms were fascism in communism's skin in practice They were totalitarian, a property shared with fascism. Also, China and the Soviet Union both claimed to be socialist revolutions on the way to communism, not actual communists, and along the way the dictatorship of the proletariat/vanguard party became "corrupted". Real communism (which is inconsistently defined between different theories anyway) does not and never has existed, and seems like it won't be possible before we reach post-scarcity anyway.
    - nine_k 8y ago
      Both Soviet (and Chinese) parties in power were (and are) nominally "Communist", not "Socialist". My favorite example of communism implemented in real life is a hermit / monastic retreat, a skete. People devote themselves to voluntarily living an ascetic life, aspiring to the absolute, caring about the common good, and eschewing things like money from daily life. From the amount of hermits in a society you can estimate how popular this mindset might be, and how realistic is it to involve an entire population into it. Post-scarcity won't solve it, because it's not going to make people automatically care about the common good as a way of self-actualization. This is why the idealist Communist leaders of early Soviets spoke so much about "raising a new man", basically hoping to change the nature of humans.
raverbashing 8y ago
> The first thing they teach you in international business and/or marketing is that cultural considerations will destroy you True, but I'm not sure it's the 1st thing they teach, given the multiple failures in this area Or, put it more simply (and I love this phrase): Culture eats strategy for breakfast

_vertigo 8y ago

Wonder how it would have gone over if Facebook had just said from the outset, “We’re not entering Asian markets yet because they’re too culturally different than us.” Bet people would have really liked that.

intended 8y ago
“We will be gradually entering markets as we develop products sensitized to the needs of our hyper local users.” That Would have sold like iPhones.
Nasrudith 8y ago
That does amusingly sound very stereotypically Japanese corporation and the annoyingly common practice of ignoring viable overseas markets and demands out of a misguided sense of exceptionalism.
- coldtea 8y ago
  Isn't it their products? Why should they sell them to markets they don't want to sell them to? Because of those markets' misguided sense of entitlement?

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

beaconstudios 8y ago

I mean, they do some pretty distasteful stuff but saying that providing an international communications platform is imperialist is just beyond silly.

Nasrudith 8y ago
Sounds like the communist usage of imperialism where anything not part of the nation, them, or their fellow travelers is imperialist even if it is better for the people and noncoerceive because they disrupt the native one. Even if it is say actual honest nongouging medicinal care displacing hedge practitioners who were themselves exploitative. While outsiders looking to make money have a long unfortunate history of doing bad things it is absurd to call them all imperialist or even all bad. Brings to mind a related observation that the USSR and most 20th century nominal communisms were fascism in communism's skin in practice but that is highly contentious from at least the two extreme sentiment ends on the subject.
- beaconstudios 8y ago
  > Brings to mind a related observation that the USSR and most 20th century nominal communisms were fascism in communism's skin in practice They were totalitarian, a property shared with fascism. Also, China and the Soviet Union both claimed to be socialist revolutions on the way to communism, not actual communists, and along the way the dictatorship of the proletariat/vanguard party became "corrupted". Real communism (which is inconsistently defined between different theories anyway) does not and never has existed, and seems like it won't be possible before we reach post-scarcity anyway.
  - nine_k 8y ago
    Both Soviet (and Chinese) parties in power were (and are) nominally "Communist", not "Socialist". My favorite example of communism implemented in real life is a hermit / monastic retreat, a skete. People devote themselves to voluntarily living an ascetic life, aspiring to the absolute, caring about the common good, and eschewing things like money from daily life. From the amount of hermits in a society you can estimate how popular this mindset might be, and how realistic is it to involve an entire population into it. Post-scarcity won't solve it, because it's not going to make people automatically care about the common good as a way of self-actualization. This is why the idealist Communist leaders of early Soviets spoke so much about "raising a new man", basically hoping to change the nature of humans.

raverbashing 8y ago

> The first thing they teach you in international business and/or marketing is that cultural considerations will destroy you True, but I'm not sure it's the 1st thing they teach, given the multiple failures in this area Or, put it more simply (and I love this phrase): Culture eats strategy for breakfast