5 ms·

> hey wield huge power and can snuff out entire startup sectors with loss-leading products. More importantly, they're becoming complacent and lazy, using their

by izacus 4y ago

> hey wield huge power and can snuff out entire startup sectors with loss-leading products. More importantly, they're becoming complacent and lazy, using their legal and financial clout to kill competition, not product improvements. This is why China is so scary - their companies have started being very competitive to US behemoths which have been buying/killing their competition for decade(s) now.

paganel 4y ago
> This is why China is so scary - their companies have started being very competitive When it comes to tech regulation the Chinese authorities have at least a 2-3 year advantage against the US/UK, notice how the likes of Alibaba and Tencent have been brought (relatively) down compared to what was expected of them 5 years ago.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  Lets all celebrate dictatorships not wanting other powerful entities in their country.
  - paganel 4y ago
    You make a good point, that is which institution has more legitimacy inside a de facto authoritarian state? The state itself and its authoritarian leaders? Or a private corporation that got so big as to "submerge" the state? (for the latter case think Samsung and South Korea, if South Korea had kept its 1970s-1980s state-policies).
  - eunos 4y ago
    Unironically
  - izacus 4y ago
    No, let's all celebrate market competition, the most critical part of a functioning economy. Chinese companies aren't competitive due to CCP or authoritarian regime, but they're competitive because they're the underdogs on western markets and can't just curbstomp the competition with lawyers and DRM like US corporations can in their markets. So they're forced to compete on price, quality and features (to some extent - it's not like they're not getting daddy Xis helping hand). Just like companies in other healthy capitalist markets which haven't completely broke due to consolidation.
    - mschuster91 4y ago
      > Chinese companies aren't competitive due to CCP or authoritarian regime, but they're competitive because they're the underdogs on western markets China has been accused multiple times of assisting their companies with absurd amounts of government subsidies (leading to at least Europe and the US enacting counter tariffs), as well as using government and private industrial espionage and hacking campaigns to clone Western products.
      - izacus 4y ago
        Absolutely, and that's toxic to the market the same way as US corporate consolidation is.
      - bigbillheck 4y ago
        What major power doesn't do this?
        mullingitover 4y ago
        Taking off my US citizen hat for a moment, this is a valid critique. Free trade, unencumbered by government subsidies, is mostly an illusion. The global system of government is anarchy, and the powerful nations hold the weaker nations to strict rules while they quietly seize any and all advantages.
    - wesapien 4y ago
      PRC "progress" was a form of control. CCP basically handed everyone "rings of power" to rule over them. All their wealth is meant to be kept inside because that's control of the nation. Imagine if they didn't have currency controls, every rich person there would dump the Yuan for other currencies and overseas real estate. Meanwhile, all the inflated properties in the PRC will drop significantly. Unrest or instability is not good for CCP.
      - izacus 4y ago
        Which is all besides the point - the point is: you need market competition for capitalism to work. As soon as competition is broken, your economy starts stagnating and other incumbents start eating away at it.
  - capableweb 4y ago
    Countries (or their leadership) can be good and bad at the same time, for different reasons. China - Awful way of treating people, illusion of democracy, but at least they reign in huge companies. US - Democracy but companies wield huge power. Doesn't seem to care about people's health much. Many European countries - Huge focus on caring about public healthcare, companies under control but innovation stifled a lot of times Same goes for basically every country, and it's important to be able to see the good and bad at the same time, to have a bit perspective. No country is 100% good, nor is any country 100% bad.
- pipes 4y ago
  Kidnapping CEOs who dare speak out against your regime, you see this as an advantage?
  - paganel 4y ago
    In general I don't have much sympathy for the CEOs of multi-multi-billion-dollar companies, if at all. And considering the current dire political and economic climate, including in many Western countries, I think that that view of mine is shared by many.
    - barry-cotter 4y ago
      People like paganel are why you should keep an eye on politics even if you hate everyone or are basically satisfied with the status quo. There’re always those who has no problem with political violence as long as the violent are on their side. Be watchful.
      - paganel 4y ago
        I’m going to quote Chateaubriand, talking about the French of his time: “the French instinctively go where the power is; they don’t love freedom at all; equality alone is their only idol. And equality and despotism have secret connections between them. Seen under that light, Napoleon’s rule drew its power from the very hearts of the French people” (badly translated by me on a small iPhone while reading Compagnon’s The Antimoderns) As such, it isn’t me or people thinking like me that you should fear (i.e. people who quote Chateaubriand to a total techie stranger on the web), you should fear the “quintessential” French (or Westerner, in today’s age) that goes “where the power is” by instinct (on this La Boetie was right centuries ago). That is if you people really care about your freedom.
    - pipes 4y ago
      So which CEOs would you blame for the dire economic climate?
    - cscurmudgeon 4y ago
      Politicians have much more power than CEOs.
015a 4y ago
Microsoft is maybe the only big tech organization that feels like they're still actively trying to out-innovate their size. They invested in OpenAI (not acquired; invested) then weeks later made substantial improvements to Bing. They made a concept hardware device 10 years ago (the Courier), then finally made it real (it's not great, but that's beside the point). They're possibly the single largest funder of insanely critical open source software projects; Kubernetes, TypeScript, VSCode, etc. They acquired Github then practically speaking left them alone to continue being a really high quality product, while simultaneously investing in internal direct competitors (Azure DevOps). They released Loop a few weeks ago; now they're going after Notion. You can argue that they're leveraging M365 and their enterprise contracts to out-innovate smaller competitors like Slack, Notion, etc. Yeah, ok; I don't love it. But I really can't help but feel: At least they're doing it. At least they're releasing new products that don't totally suck. I literally can't think of one thing Google has released in the past five years that left a fingerprint on the world. Facebook is a similar story. Apple is a very different company, but its not dissimilar: M1 was incredible, but if you put that aside (because, really, the past three years has been "M1 Catchup" for them) the iPhone is the same thing it was four years ago, the iPad is the same, the Watch is the same, the software is overwhelmingly the same, I guess they have a new Savings Account (when companies start running out of ideas to innovate, they turn to financial engineering). Microsoft is a cool company, and I'll die on that hill. I'm not happy with everything they do. I think the entire Windows division leadership needs to be gutted and replaced, and they need to think long and hard about what Windows looks like for the next 10 years (and maybe they're already doing that!). But putting that aside, even considering Microsoft's very light anti-competitiveness, I'd take them over the rest of big tech nowadays. They're mostly just lame ducks.
- enedil 4y ago
  Kubernetes is from Google.
  - 015a 4y ago
    Its not Google's project anymore. They're still the largest contributor, but Red Hat, VMWare, and Microsoft are all massive contributors [1] [1] https://k8s.devstats.cncf.io/d/9/companies-table?orgId=1&var-period_name=Last%202%20years&var-metric=contributions https://k8s.devstats.cncf.io/d/9/companies-table?orgId=1&var...

by izacus 4y ago

paganel 4y ago

> This is why China is so scary - their companies have started being very competitive When it comes to tech regulation the Chinese authorities have at least a 2-3 year advantage against the US/UK, notice how the likes of Alibaba and Tencent have been brought (relatively) down compared to what was expected of them 5 years ago.

panick21_ 4y ago
Lets all celebrate dictatorships not wanting other powerful entities in their country.
- paganel 4y ago
  You make a good point, that is which institution has more legitimacy inside a de facto authoritarian state? The state itself and its authoritarian leaders? Or a private corporation that got so big as to "submerge" the state? (for the latter case think Samsung and South Korea, if South Korea had kept its 1970s-1980s state-policies).
- eunos 4y ago
  Unironically
- izacus 4y ago
  No, let's all celebrate market competition, the most critical part of a functioning economy. Chinese companies aren't competitive due to CCP or authoritarian regime, but they're competitive because they're the underdogs on western markets and can't just curbstomp the competition with lawyers and DRM like US corporations can in their markets. So they're forced to compete on price, quality and features (to some extent - it's not like they're not getting daddy Xis helping hand). Just like companies in other healthy capitalist markets which haven't completely broke due to consolidation.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    > Chinese companies aren't competitive due to CCP or authoritarian regime, but they're competitive because they're the underdogs on western markets China has been accused multiple times of assisting their companies with absurd amounts of government subsidies (leading to at least Europe and the US enacting counter tariffs), as well as using government and private industrial espionage and hacking campaigns to clone Western products.
    - izacus 4y ago
      Absolutely, and that's toxic to the market the same way as US corporate consolidation is.
    - bigbillheck 4y ago
      What major power doesn't do this?
      - mullingitover 4y ago
        Taking off my US citizen hat for a moment, this is a valid critique. Free trade, unencumbered by government subsidies, is mostly an illusion. The global system of government is anarchy, and the powerful nations hold the weaker nations to strict rules while they quietly seize any and all advantages.
  - wesapien 4y ago
    PRC "progress" was a form of control. CCP basically handed everyone "rings of power" to rule over them. All their wealth is meant to be kept inside because that's control of the nation. Imagine if they didn't have currency controls, every rich person there would dump the Yuan for other currencies and overseas real estate. Meanwhile, all the inflated properties in the PRC will drop significantly. Unrest or instability is not good for CCP.
    - izacus 4y ago
      Which is all besides the point - the point is: you need market competition for capitalism to work. As soon as competition is broken, your economy starts stagnating and other incumbents start eating away at it.
- capableweb 4y ago
  Countries (or their leadership) can be good and bad at the same time, for different reasons. China - Awful way of treating people, illusion of democracy, but at least they reign in huge companies. US - Democracy but companies wield huge power. Doesn't seem to care about people's health much. Many European countries - Huge focus on caring about public healthcare, companies under control but innovation stifled a lot of times Same goes for basically every country, and it's important to be able to see the good and bad at the same time, to have a bit perspective. No country is 100% good, nor is any country 100% bad.
pipes 4y ago
Kidnapping CEOs who dare speak out against your regime, you see this as an advantage?
- paganel 4y ago
  In general I don't have much sympathy for the CEOs of multi-multi-billion-dollar companies, if at all. And considering the current dire political and economic climate, including in many Western countries, I think that that view of mine is shared by many.
  - barry-cotter 4y ago
    People like paganel are why you should keep an eye on politics even if you hate everyone or are basically satisfied with the status quo. There’re always those who has no problem with political violence as long as the violent are on their side. Be watchful.
    - paganel 4y ago
      I’m going to quote Chateaubriand, talking about the French of his time: “the French instinctively go where the power is; they don’t love freedom at all; equality alone is their only idol. And equality and despotism have secret connections between them. Seen under that light, Napoleon’s rule drew its power from the very hearts of the French people” (badly translated by me on a small iPhone while reading Compagnon’s The Antimoderns) As such, it isn’t me or people thinking like me that you should fear (i.e. people who quote Chateaubriand to a total techie stranger on the web), you should fear the “quintessential” French (or Westerner, in today’s age) that goes “where the power is” by instinct (on this La Boetie was right centuries ago). That is if you people really care about your freedom.
  - pipes 4y ago
    So which CEOs would you blame for the dire economic climate?
  - cscurmudgeon 4y ago
    Politicians have much more power than CEOs.

015a 4y ago

Microsoft is maybe the only big tech organization that feels like they're still actively trying to out-innovate their size. They invested in OpenAI (not acquired; invested) then weeks later made substantial improvements to Bing. They made a concept hardware device 10 years ago (the Courier), then finally made it real (it's not great, but that's beside the point). They're possibly the single largest funder of insanely critical open source software projects; Kubernetes, TypeScript, VSCode, etc. They acquired Github then practically speaking left them alone to continue being a really high quality product, while simultaneously investing in internal direct competitors (Azure DevOps). They released Loop a few weeks ago; now they're going after Notion. You can argue that they're leveraging M365 and their enterprise contracts to out-innovate smaller competitors like Slack, Notion, etc. Yeah, ok; I don't love it. But I really can't help but feel: At least they're doing it. At least they're releasing new products that don't totally suck. I literally can't think of one thing Google has released in the past five years that left a fingerprint on the world. Facebook is a similar story. Apple is a very different company, but its not dissimilar: M1 was incredible, but if you put that aside (because, really, the past three years has been "M1 Catchup" for them) the iPhone is the same thing it was four years ago, the iPad is the same, the Watch is the same, the software is overwhelmingly the same, I guess they have a new Savings Account (when companies start running out of ideas to innovate, they turn to financial engineering). Microsoft is a cool company, and I'll die on that hill. I'm not happy with everything they do. I think the entire Windows division leadership needs to be gutted and replaced, and they need to think long and hard about what Windows looks like for the next 10 years (and maybe they're already doing that!). But putting that aside, even considering Microsoft's very light anti-competitiveness, I'd take them over the rest of big tech nowadays. They're mostly just lame ducks.

enedil 4y ago
Kubernetes is from Google.
- 015a 4y ago
  Its not Google's project anymore. They're still the largest contributor, but Red Hat, VMWare, and Microsoft are all massive contributors [1] [1] https://k8s.devstats.cncf.io/d/9/companies-table?orgId=1&var-period_name=Last%202%20years&var-metric=contributions https://k8s.devstats.cncf.io/d/9/companies-table?orgId=1&var...