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I'm not sure how accurate this is. But the Chinese government cares much more about information, and the transmission of information than retail food or luxury

by Charuru 16y ago

I'm not sure how accurate this is. But the Chinese government cares much more about information, and the transmission of information than retail food or luxury electronics. The government interferes in all industries, but especially in areas they consider to be fundamental infrastructure, and search rightly falls into this category. Many of the problems you talk about (slow, connection resets, etc) are caused by the great firewall. You really think Google don't know how to keep good uptime or know how important speed is? As for the 'forget english' problem, do you have cookies turned on? Anyway for Chinese users the chinese forums are probably more useful than the official Oracle docs in terms of java api.

garply 16y ago
First, about the language issue: Cookies are on, I'm logged into my account, and Interface Language and Search Language are both set to English only. Without ever closing my browser or logging out, within 10 or 20 minutes Google will revert to Chinese. I realize the other problems I'm talking about are caused by the firewall. But that's because Google has not complied with mainland laws or Chinese business culture. Google's poor performance is still Google's fault at core. Had they brought their tech into China and then taken their American hands off and let mainland Chinese (or Taiwanese, who are also adept at the mainland market) businessmen manage their branch as they saw fit, they would've done fine. The government wouldn't have disrupted them if they had focused on maintaining good government relations. A big part of the reason KFC crushes McDonalds here (it has 4x the number of stores if I recall correctly) is that KFC China was put into the hands of Taiwanese who created localized products and degraded quality and sanitation for the sake of price and fast growth. The American McDonald's managers wanted Chinese McDs to be just like the ones all over the rest of the world - including the same hygiene standards. McDonalds have "A" sanitation ratings where KFCs have "B"s, but it cost them the market. Incidentally, I switched over to English when I started writing this post and it's already switched back now that I'm at the end.
- siculars 16y ago
  I'm imagine that within 10 or 20 minutes the great firewall is nixing your cookies and rewriting your request en-route to google. The legion of internet monitors have an easier time reading your search results in chinese rather than english.
- archgoon 16y ago
  >A big part of the reason KFC crushes McDonalds here (it has 4x the number of stores if I recall correctly) is that KFC China was put into the hands of Taiwanese who created localized products and degraded quality and sanitation for the sake of price and fast growth. When you put it that way, I can't imagine why Google didn't 'want to play ball'.
  - garply 16y ago
    But cheap and low quality is what the mass Chinese market needs for now. The average Chinese does not have the money of an average American and thus does not value or is unable to pay for the quality of an American-style product. I'll give you more examples: the plugs for my electronic items never fit snugly into the wall socket, they're either too loose or need to be jammed in. Why? Because it costs more to make the plugs precise. Nobody sells electronic products with better-fitting plugs because nobody would buy them ("What, you expect me to spend more money just so that it's easier to plug in my toaster? Get real."). And Walmart is for the upper-middle class here.
    - radu_floricica 16y ago
      No idea why you're getting downvotted. I'm in a not-so-rich country (though definitely not poor) and I can totally understand that some things you just can't afford, even if they may give better value for money.
    - axod 16y ago
      Maybe Google doesn't really mind since the advertising revenue would likely be very small? Wonder how much profit baidu makes
- wisty 16y ago
  KFC vs McDonalds - that's a surprise, as KFC is basically the same price in China as McDonalds. I though KFC won partly because of the localized products, but mostly because Chinese like fried chicken. There's plenty of other chicken places (Dicos is the notable one), but no-where else you can get a beef burger (unless you count the a-half-a-dozen Burger Kings). McDonalds flagship product seems to be the spicy chicken burger these days. And they sell spicy chicken wings.
loewenskind 16y ago
The language bit really is a problem. I'm in a German speaking country and I just can't make google understand to stop giving me German results. The frustrating thing is that it's so simple to fix this. I use language preferences. If you see that the language preference is set to something not normal for the area, believe it! And if the user does something to change language offer them a tip on how to make it work automatically.

by Charuru 16y ago

garply 16y ago

First, about the language issue: Cookies are on, I'm logged into my account, and Interface Language and Search Language are both set to English only. Without ever closing my browser or logging out, within 10 or 20 minutes Google will revert to Chinese. I realize the other problems I'm talking about are caused by the firewall. But that's because Google has not complied with mainland laws or Chinese business culture. Google's poor performance is still Google's fault at core. Had they brought their tech into China and then taken their American hands off and let mainland Chinese (or Taiwanese, who are also adept at the mainland market) businessmen manage their branch as they saw fit, they would've done fine. The government wouldn't have disrupted them if they had focused on maintaining good government relations. A big part of the reason KFC crushes McDonalds here (it has 4x the number of stores if I recall correctly) is that KFC China was put into the hands of Taiwanese who created localized products and degraded quality and sanitation for the sake of price and fast growth. The American McDonald's managers wanted Chinese McDs to be just like the ones all over the rest of the world - including the same hygiene standards. McDonalds have "A" sanitation ratings where KFCs have "B"s, but it cost them the market. Incidentally, I switched over to English when I started writing this post and it's already switched back now that I'm at the end.

siculars 16y ago
I'm imagine that within 10 or 20 minutes the great firewall is nixing your cookies and rewriting your request en-route to google. The legion of internet monitors have an easier time reading your search results in chinese rather than english.
archgoon 16y ago
>A big part of the reason KFC crushes McDonalds here (it has 4x the number of stores if I recall correctly) is that KFC China was put into the hands of Taiwanese who created localized products and degraded quality and sanitation for the sake of price and fast growth. When you put it that way, I can't imagine why Google didn't 'want to play ball'.
- garply 16y ago
  But cheap and low quality is what the mass Chinese market needs for now. The average Chinese does not have the money of an average American and thus does not value or is unable to pay for the quality of an American-style product. I'll give you more examples: the plugs for my electronic items never fit snugly into the wall socket, they're either too loose or need to be jammed in. Why? Because it costs more to make the plugs precise. Nobody sells electronic products with better-fitting plugs because nobody would buy them ("What, you expect me to spend more money just so that it's easier to plug in my toaster? Get real."). And Walmart is for the upper-middle class here.
  - radu_floricica 16y ago
    No idea why you're getting downvotted. I'm in a not-so-rich country (though definitely not poor) and I can totally understand that some things you just can't afford, even if they may give better value for money.
  - axod 16y ago
    Maybe Google doesn't really mind since the advertising revenue would likely be very small? Wonder how much profit baidu makes
wisty 16y ago
KFC vs McDonalds - that's a surprise, as KFC is basically the same price in China as McDonalds. I though KFC won partly because of the localized products, but mostly because Chinese like fried chicken. There's plenty of other chicken places (Dicos is the notable one), but no-where else you can get a beef burger (unless you count the a-half-a-dozen Burger Kings). McDonalds flagship product seems to be the spicy chicken burger these days. And they sell spicy chicken wings.

loewenskind 16y ago

The language bit really is a problem. I'm in a German speaking country and I just can't make google understand to stop giving me German results. The frustrating thing is that it's so simple to fix this. I use language preferences. If you see that the language preference is set to something not normal for the area, believe it! And if the user does something to change language offer them a tip on how to make it work automatically.