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China’s tech sector is in the doldrums
- Waterluvian 8y agoAny time I see an article about China's tech doom I'm skeptical. Are there any solid, trustworthy sources for statistics on these matters? Where should I be looking for signal?
- jialutu 8y agoThere was a similar report in qz https://qz.com/1562014/chinas-tech-giants-are-firing-people-amid-an-economy-slowdown/ https://qz.com/1562014/chinas-tech-giants-are-firing-people-... with links (mostly in Chinese) about layoffs in the Chinese tech sector. The way I am reading it, what the article is getting at is specifically tech unicorns are in trouble, either that they are not making the money they require or getting the investments they once had. Doesn't exactly mean a 'tech doom', but I would say these are worrying signs.
- valgor 8y agoAll western, liberal media sources refuse to publish anything that paints China in a good light. <conspiracy-theory>I think it is because the US is falling behind while China is pushing forward.</conspiracy-theory> However, China media sources are as completely bias as western sources, only in the opposite direction. I suspect reality is some where in the middle.
- def- 8y agoSounds familiar: > Vladimir Bukovsky maintained that the middle ground between the Big Lie of Soviet propaganda and the truth was itself a lie, and one should not be looking for a middle ground between disinformation and information.[5] According to him, people from the Western pluralistic civilization are more prone to this fallacy because they are used to resolving problems by making compromises and accepting alternative interpretations—unlike Russians, who are looking for the absolute truth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation
- ratling 8y agoThey aren’t? China is really good at copying/stealing other people’s ideas. Not coming up with the next big thing.
- withhighprod 8y agoChinese won’t tell you they are working on the next big thing. Oh let’s don’t put ride sharing and other tech nonsense into the picture. “Shared bicycle” startup scaled up in China the first time and they just burned billions with close to zero values
- simonh 8y agoWestern media sources (many of which are not liberal) rarely publish anything that paints anyone in a good light. Why should they make an exception for China? They hold everyone's feet to the fire all the time, and so they should.
- valgor 8y agoI used the term 'liberal' as in they are pro-market, which the Economist claims to be.
- woodandsteel 8y ago>All western, liberal media sources refuse to publish anything that paints China in a good light. <conspiracy-theory That's not at all true. I have seen countless articles in the mainstream media over the years about the huge gains China has made. What I also see a lot is that when the mainstream press reports something that is going bad in China, then China defenders will say something like you just did.
- sct202 8y agoIt's like using ZeroHedge as your source of news. It is not inaccurate (they generally link to reputable sources), but potentially overblown or out of context.
- woodandsteel 8y agoSo what is overblown or out of context about this article?
- seanmcdirmid 8y agoThe Economist article is making a relatively benign claim: it isn’t claiming collapse, crash, or even a recession, just a downturn. So how did you get “tech doom” out of that? Is it just the setup for a straw man?
- KineticLensman 8y ago'Doldrums' is not the same as 'Doom'. Specific and non-apocalyptic phrases from the article are * "Technology startups are finding it harder to attract venture capital" * "slowest quarterly revenue increase since 2014" * "Deals are taking longer: a round of funding once raised within a month is taking six"
- rchaud 8y agoThis isn't really a "doom" article, the gist of it is that VC investment is down and some of China's unicorns have failed.
- DeonPenny 8y agoI'm not check any of their IPO last year. All of them are down with terrible. I mean terrible earnings reports. NIO spent 500 million on 7 million in revenue
- blue4 8y ago> By one count 48 million people in China lack sufficient drinking water. The number of people facing severe drinking water shortages doubled to 5.9 million in early 2008 because of a severe winter drought. China has more than a fifth of the world's population but only 7 percent of its fresh water. Not from the article, but if there was a startup needed and one that could jump start their sector there, a significant problem to solve is clean water.
- adventured 8y agoWhat's China's position when it comes to desalination? I'd expect they have massive desalination plants along their large coast.
- yorwba 8y agoApparently there are desalination plants, but they are not cost-competitive with other freshwater sources, so only industrial developments that are required to provide their own water supply use them. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601861/chinas-massive-effort-to-purify-seawater-is-drying-up/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601861/chinas-massive-eff...
- exabrial 8y agoThe problem isn't the lack of fresh water sources, the distribution network is riddled with pathogens. This is due to poor design and workers taking shortcuts (not performing sanitation steps to meet deadlines).
- baybal2 8y agoChina has enormous amount of freshwater, it's just not managed properly. Pakistan - same story.
- ElBarto 8y agoThis is an infrastructure problem. A startup isn't going to solve this. Between lack of water and unsafe water, I'm not sure that the proportion in the US is much different.
- achow 8y agohttps://outline.com/7Cdf8g https://outline.com/7Cdf8g
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]