7 ms·

in a lot of cases the low-cost competitors are not only lower cost but have more features and/or better performance. They side-step a lot of the planned obsole

in a lot of cases the low-cost competitors are not only lower cost but have more features and/or better performance. They side-step a lot of the planned obsolescence and intentional feature scarcity US companies have become so dependent on to avoid meaningful R&D. Its hard not to see a lot of them as sort of a Robin Hood. On topic though, Most of the pot-banging from Washington is at the behest of AT&T and other US carrier/handset/chip companies who are rightly livid that Huawei made it to market with 5G before they had a chance to monopolize it.

tharne 7y ago
> Most of the pot-banging from Washington is at the behest of AT&T and other US carrier/handset/chip companies who are rightly livid that Huawei made it to market with 5G before they had a chance to monopolize it. Nope. Pretty sure most of the issue has to do with the spying, backdoors, and overall lack of ethics. This is the from same country that brought us a potential global pandemic because they spent weeks lying and covering up a rapidly spreading illness simply because they didn't want to lose face.
- clSTophEjUdRanu 7y ago
  b-b-but America bad! /s
- AYBABTME 7y ago
  Do you think other countries would have done better? I'm personally impressed with how decisively China has been handling this pandemic. Don't mean to go off topic, but general China bashing isn't productive. Lumping together all China related topics as if it was all the grand project of an evil mastermind is only good in the movies.
  - tharne 7y ago
    > I'm personally impressed with how decisively China has been handling this pandemic. You mean like how they muzzled one of the first doctors who tried to warn the public about it, and then that doctor later died of the virus? Very impressive, if that's how you roll.
  - frankharv 7y ago
    Yes. Especially ones with Free Speech. China literally arrested a doctor for warning his colleagues. I have never heard of anything like that in the Free World.
    - colejohnson66 7y ago
      Not exactly the same, but the recent kerfuffle with some pentesters and a courthouse was a thing.
      - sidlls 7y ago
        Not even remotely comparable. A better analogy would be Trump's retaliation against good-faith actors raising complaints about his lawbreaking but it's still a weak one. America isn't any angelic nation, to be sure, but even our worst actions (Trump's retaliation, the border family separation issues) aren't even close to the routine, daily, and pernicious violations of human rights and dignity in China.
  - sidlls 7y ago
    Yes, other countries—specifically ones with more open and free societies—tend to do better on this and numerous other issues. Most of China’s current economic position is due to two factors: 1) the population numbers game; 2) the theft of others’ work (it’s debatable which has been more critical). I wouldn’t care about China’s economic ascendance or even that they used thievery to get it if the country weren’t an oppressive dictatorship. This isn’t merely a cultural difference: China’s government is absolutely something anybody who values freedom and egalitarianism should be in opposition to.
vorpalhex 7y ago
> not only lower cost but have more features and/or better performance Yeah, many of these vendors do improve upon the original products quite a bit so even while initial versions can be shoddy knockoffs, later editions are often times improved compared to the original. > Its hard not to see a lot of them as sort of a Robin Hood. They're definitely profiting, and they're doing it partially through lower worker standards and looser laws on pollution. They are acting for profit, not to fix the flaws of Western capitalism.
- wcarron 7y ago
  If they're exposing the flaws of western capitalism, I view that as a positive. That they are also acting for profit doesn't negate the value of forcing incumbent US megacorps to actually get off their butts and invest in improving products. You said it yourself: later editions are improved often times. Yes, some of this gain is due to lower worker standard, but I highly doubt ATT, VZ, etc. are really maximizing for worker standards, either.
  - travisgriggs 7y ago
    It's basically wild wild west anarchism. It's like take "western capitalism" and extrapolate to a worse place. I get that western capitalism (whatever that actually means anymore) has gone off the rails some. But seeing the Chinese approach as a just come-uppance is like being glad that killers have showed up to get rid of all of the bullies. It just gets worse.
  - vorpalhex 7y ago
    Those ATT workers sleeping 8 to a garage and pitching themselves off buildings sure is a dang tragedy.
andreilys 7y ago
” They side-step a lot of the planned obsolescence and intentional feature scarcity US companies have become so dependent on to avoid meaningful R&D. ” They also “side-step” the capital and years of research required to come up with the products. Why invest in R&D when you can invest in corporate espionage for a fraction of the cost?
- mNovak 7y ago
  Not here to debate whether IP theft happens, but to be clear Huawei does also invest billions into R&D (domestic and abroad)
- karavelov 7y ago
  If they didn't invest in research, how were they first to market with 5G solutions?
  - richk449 7y ago
    They even stole the stuff we haven’t invented yet !!
    - blackrock 7y ago
      OMG.. Huawei has a time machine too? Damn it, that’s it! That’s just not fair. We must ban them now. Won’t somebody think of the children?
- chrischen 7y ago
  That's a separate issue. If Huawei violated some IP patents then why aren't they suing for that? Any meaningful R&D developments would be patented and would be publicly available and described anyways. And if your product is so weakly innovative that a picture of the circuity or some power point slides basically give away significant trade secrets, then your product probably sucks. These charges sound like they're for non-innovation based trade secrets, whatever those may be.
cycrutchfield 7y ago
As a consumer, that may be good in the short term. But innovation isn’t free. In a world where people can just copy other people’s hard work with impunity, what incentive is there to invest in innovation?
- mandelbrotwurst 7y ago
  Being first to market has its advantages.
  - sidlls 7y ago
    Shrinking advantages as the delta-t between release and the appearance of dozens of stolen cheap knockoffs decreases.
- benaadams 7y ago
  I hear OSS is doing well when it comes to innovation...
  - mdorazio 7y ago
    I hear most OSS contributions come from people who make a living working at proprietary software companies...
  - bcrosby95 7y ago
    Most people working on OSS are paid by companies that rely heavily on closed source innovation in other areas of business. They are commoditizing their compliments.
    - effie 7y ago
      Even if that claim about "most people" was true, the point is still valid - OSS contributors _are_ "innovating" (creating new things to make money on), despite the innovations being freely copied. In part, the innovation happens _because_ or _with_help_ of free copying. Free sharing of some ideas/knowledge can be benefitial to innovation. Nobody is claiming _all_ ideas business finds / works on should be immediately shared freely with the world. The benefactors of a business are naturally motivated to protect their know-how. But it should be the business' responsibility to protect its secrets, not HN commenters or governments'. If an idea can't be kept secret, then government issues patents, which should be time limited and regional.
kube-system 7y ago
Why would US carriers want to pot-bang about this? They would only lose money by doing so. AT&T and Huawei are not competitors.
chrisjc 7y ago
Aren't most of the other 5G infrastructure manufactures European (Siemens, Nokia)? Do the US carriers really care where their equipment comes from? Handset manufactures probably don't care since they're sourcing from others. Perhaps Samsung (Exynos) being the exception, but they're Korean. Apple bought Intel's 5G division. The only chip company that I could imagine cares is Qualcomm.
Koremat6666 7y ago
> On topic though, Most of the pot-banging from Washington is at the behest of AT&T and other US carrier/handset/chip companies who are rightly livid that Huawei made it to market with 5G before they had a chance to monopolize it. This one sentence summarized everything.
- creato 7y ago
  I don't think that sentence actually makes any sense. AT&T and other US carriers probably don't care who manufactures their equipment. They make money on the service they sell. The US doesn't actually have any vendor for most of this kind of equipment, the competitors here are either European or Chinese.
jariel 7y ago
This is not true and implies a misunderstanding of the industry. AT&T, like most carriers, is perfectly happy to get super cheap and gear from China, at a fraction of the price they'd pay otherwise. In fact, carriers around the world are the one's pushing to use Huawei. Second - the US doesn't really have any capabilities in the 5G space, for the most part. It's European companies: Erikson and Nokia that have capabilities. Cisco, Lucent etc. are not even on the radar on this issue. Given that your position is completely at odds with the reality of the market, you'll have to provide some material evidence of your claim that the US is just up in a fuss over their lack of dominance of 5G, otherwise, they just don't seem true. Once again, all of this narrative misleads us from the real underlying issue, which is that Huawei and others have been systematically and openly stealing property.
- effie 7y ago
  > real underlying issue, which is that Huawei and others have been systematically and openly stealing property. Issue for whom? Most people are perfectly happy with one company learning and mimicking products of another company, if they get cheaper and better versions. This is perfectly natural. If some rich guys feel like China got ahead of them too much too quickly, that's too bad - they should have protected their stuff, not teach Chinese to manufacture it.
  - jariel 7y ago
    Sending in spies to steal protected information is blatant theft by any definition. The number of people here trying to downplay what's going on is astonishing, I can only imagine they themselves are not legit posters.
    - effie 7y ago
      State and corporate espionage isn't anything new. As well as learning and copying business (your "theft"). Japanese did the same with semiconductors. I don't know what _exactly_ has been going on with Huawei and other companies, but I understand that the publicized outrage about Huawei and other Chinese companies stealing from America isn't natural. Most people were fine with Chinese advancing and copying, since everybody benefited from cheap labor/products. Until the powerful in the West realized american economy is in bad shape, power balance in the world is shifting and it's time to do something about it. I guess shaping public opinion on China is part of that.

tharne 7y ago

> Most of the pot-banging from Washington is at the behest of AT&T and other US carrier/handset/chip companies who are rightly livid that Huawei made it to market with 5G before they had a chance to monopolize it. Nope. Pretty sure most of the issue has to do with the spying, backdoors, and overall lack of ethics. This is the from same country that brought us a potential global pandemic because they spent weeks lying and covering up a rapidly spreading illness simply because they didn't want to lose face.

clSTophEjUdRanu 7y ago
b-b-but America bad! /s
AYBABTME 7y ago
Do you think other countries would have done better? I'm personally impressed with how decisively China has been handling this pandemic. Don't mean to go off topic, but general China bashing isn't productive. Lumping together all China related topics as if it was all the grand project of an evil mastermind is only good in the movies.
- tharne 7y ago
  > I'm personally impressed with how decisively China has been handling this pandemic. You mean like how they muzzled one of the first doctors who tried to warn the public about it, and then that doctor later died of the virus? Very impressive, if that's how you roll.
- frankharv 7y ago
  Yes. Especially ones with Free Speech. China literally arrested a doctor for warning his colleagues. I have never heard of anything like that in the Free World.
  - colejohnson66 7y ago
    Not exactly the same, but the recent kerfuffle with some pentesters and a courthouse was a thing.
    - sidlls 7y ago
      Not even remotely comparable. A better analogy would be Trump's retaliation against good-faith actors raising complaints about his lawbreaking but it's still a weak one. America isn't any angelic nation, to be sure, but even our worst actions (Trump's retaliation, the border family separation issues) aren't even close to the routine, daily, and pernicious violations of human rights and dignity in China.
- sidlls 7y ago
  Yes, other countries—specifically ones with more open and free societies—tend to do better on this and numerous other issues. Most of China’s current economic position is due to two factors: 1) the population numbers game; 2) the theft of others’ work (it’s debatable which has been more critical). I wouldn’t care about China’s economic ascendance or even that they used thievery to get it if the country weren’t an oppressive dictatorship. This isn’t merely a cultural difference: China’s government is absolutely something anybody who values freedom and egalitarianism should be in opposition to.

vorpalhex 7y ago

> not only lower cost but have more features and/or better performance Yeah, many of these vendors do improve upon the original products quite a bit so even while initial versions can be shoddy knockoffs, later editions are often times improved compared to the original. > Its hard not to see a lot of them as sort of a Robin Hood. They're definitely profiting, and they're doing it partially through lower worker standards and looser laws on pollution. They are acting for profit, not to fix the flaws of Western capitalism.

wcarron 7y ago
If they're exposing the flaws of western capitalism, I view that as a positive. That they are also acting for profit doesn't negate the value of forcing incumbent US megacorps to actually get off their butts and invest in improving products. You said it yourself: later editions are improved often times. Yes, some of this gain is due to lower worker standard, but I highly doubt ATT, VZ, etc. are really maximizing for worker standards, either.
- travisgriggs 7y ago
  It's basically wild wild west anarchism. It's like take "western capitalism" and extrapolate to a worse place. I get that western capitalism (whatever that actually means anymore) has gone off the rails some. But seeing the Chinese approach as a just come-uppance is like being glad that killers have showed up to get rid of all of the bullies. It just gets worse.
- vorpalhex 7y ago
  Those ATT workers sleeping 8 to a garage and pitching themselves off buildings sure is a dang tragedy.

andreilys 7y ago

” They side-step a lot of the planned obsolescence and intentional feature scarcity US companies have become so dependent on to avoid meaningful R&D. ” They also “side-step” the capital and years of research required to come up with the products. Why invest in R&D when you can invest in corporate espionage for a fraction of the cost?

mNovak 7y ago
Not here to debate whether IP theft happens, but to be clear Huawei does also invest billions into R&D (domestic and abroad)
karavelov 7y ago
If they didn't invest in research, how were they first to market with 5G solutions?
- richk449 7y ago
  They even stole the stuff we haven’t invented yet !!
  - blackrock 7y ago
    OMG.. Huawei has a time machine too? Damn it, that’s it! That’s just not fair. We must ban them now. Won’t somebody think of the children?
chrischen 7y ago
That's a separate issue. If Huawei violated some IP patents then why aren't they suing for that? Any meaningful R&D developments would be patented and would be publicly available and described anyways. And if your product is so weakly innovative that a picture of the circuity or some power point slides basically give away significant trade secrets, then your product probably sucks. These charges sound like they're for non-innovation based trade secrets, whatever those may be.

cycrutchfield 7y ago

As a consumer, that may be good in the short term. But innovation isn’t free. In a world where people can just copy other people’s hard work with impunity, what incentive is there to invest in innovation?

mandelbrotwurst 7y ago
Being first to market has its advantages.
- sidlls 7y ago
  Shrinking advantages as the delta-t between release and the appearance of dozens of stolen cheap knockoffs decreases.
benaadams 7y ago
I hear OSS is doing well when it comes to innovation...
- mdorazio 7y ago
  I hear most OSS contributions come from people who make a living working at proprietary software companies...
- bcrosby95 7y ago
  Most people working on OSS are paid by companies that rely heavily on closed source innovation in other areas of business. They are commoditizing their compliments.
  - effie 7y ago
    Even if that claim about "most people" was true, the point is still valid - OSS contributors _are_ "innovating" (creating new things to make money on), despite the innovations being freely copied. In part, the innovation happens _because_ or _with_help_ of free copying. Free sharing of some ideas/knowledge can be benefitial to innovation. Nobody is claiming _all_ ideas business finds / works on should be immediately shared freely with the world. The benefactors of a business are naturally motivated to protect their know-how. But it should be the business' responsibility to protect its secrets, not HN commenters or governments'. If an idea can't be kept secret, then government issues patents, which should be time limited and regional.

kube-system 7y ago

Why would US carriers want to pot-bang about this? They would only lose money by doing so. AT&T and Huawei are not competitors.

chrisjc 7y ago

Aren't most of the other 5G infrastructure manufactures European (Siemens, Nokia)? Do the US carriers really care where their equipment comes from? Handset manufactures probably don't care since they're sourcing from others. Perhaps Samsung (Exynos) being the exception, but they're Korean. Apple bought Intel's 5G division. The only chip company that I could imagine cares is Qualcomm.

Koremat6666 7y ago

> On topic though, Most of the pot-banging from Washington is at the behest of AT&T and other US carrier/handset/chip companies who are rightly livid that Huawei made it to market with 5G before they had a chance to monopolize it. This one sentence summarized everything.

creato 7y ago
I don't think that sentence actually makes any sense. AT&T and other US carriers probably don't care who manufactures their equipment. They make money on the service they sell. The US doesn't actually have any vendor for most of this kind of equipment, the competitors here are either European or Chinese.

jariel 7y ago

This is not true and implies a misunderstanding of the industry. AT&T, like most carriers, is perfectly happy to get super cheap and gear from China, at a fraction of the price they'd pay otherwise. In fact, carriers around the world are the one's pushing to use Huawei. Second - the US doesn't really have any capabilities in the 5G space, for the most part. It's European companies: Erikson and Nokia that have capabilities. Cisco, Lucent etc. are not even on the radar on this issue. Given that your position is completely at odds with the reality of the market, you'll have to provide some material evidence of your claim that the US is just up in a fuss over their lack of dominance of 5G, otherwise, they just don't seem true. Once again, all of this narrative misleads us from the real underlying issue, which is that Huawei and others have been systematically and openly stealing property.

effie 7y ago
> real underlying issue, which is that Huawei and others have been systematically and openly stealing property. Issue for whom? Most people are perfectly happy with one company learning and mimicking products of another company, if they get cheaper and better versions. This is perfectly natural. If some rich guys feel like China got ahead of them too much too quickly, that's too bad - they should have protected their stuff, not teach Chinese to manufacture it.
- jariel 7y ago
  Sending in spies to steal protected information is blatant theft by any definition. The number of people here trying to downplay what's going on is astonishing, I can only imagine they themselves are not legit posters.
  - effie 7y ago
    State and corporate espionage isn't anything new. As well as learning and copying business (your "theft"). Japanese did the same with semiconductors. I don't know what _exactly_ has been going on with Huawei and other companies, but I understand that the publicized outrage about Huawei and other Chinese companies stealing from America isn't natural. Most people were fine with Chinese advancing and copying, since everybody benefited from cheap labor/products. Until the powerful in the West realized american economy is in bad shape, power balance in the world is shifting and it's time to do something about it. I guess shaping public opinion on China is part of that.