4 ms·

I kinda wonder how do you evaluate a thriving software economy in China's case. A bit like Japan, I feel they're not going straight at the OS vendors (Microsof

I kinda wonder how do you evaluate a thriving software economy in China's case. A bit like Japan, I feel they're not going straight at the OS vendors (Microsoft/Apple) as these will bend over backward to accomadate them anyway, and in every area they've been actively blocked they made their own rival version (e.g. cloud services) Is there anything we can point at to say "Chinese don't have the skills to do it" ?

whatshisface 3y ago
How anyone can look at over a billion unique people and say "Chinese this" or "Chinese that" is as far beyond me as anything.
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  I think I'd take a "Ethiopians can't build an AWS rival", even if Ethiopians are unique and intelligent. But that wouldn't be true for China (don't know market sizes, but I'd assume Tencent's cloud offering for instance is somewhat viable ?)
  - KRAKRISMOTT 3y ago
    Ethiopians may not, but Indians and to a lesser extent, Nigerians can. The next economic boom after Asia will be in West Africa.
  - whatshisface 3y ago
    ...why couldn't Ethiopians build an AWS rival? Google can't build an AWS rival because (ultimately) AWS already exists in the market and has economies of scale. If Ethiopia banned AWS I cannot think of a single reason a cloud hosting provider with perhaps smaller data centers due to the smaller size of the market would show up in Ethiopia.
- eru 3y ago
  Of course, you can't make universal claims, because there are enough outliers. But you can easily talk about averages and about statistical distributions. Eg I'm fairly confident in saying 'the typical Chinese person eats a fair amount of rice'.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  In the same way that anything done in America is reduced to 美国人 in China.
seanmcdirmid 3y ago
That weird to say. Many of the SWEs working on OS in the west are Chinese. They have the skills, but it’s just too easy for China to use Android or Linux, or to get the nice Apple experience, then to spend much investing in making their own OS for nationalistic reasons. They have larger problems in terms of semiconductor development and jet turbines that need gobs of resources and have much more national security impact.
- eru 3y ago
  Linux is an interesting example. There's no need to make your own Linux, because no sanctions etc can keep you from using Linux. That's also part of why eg the US hasn't needed to make their own Linux. There's no risk that your Linux supply chain will be cut off in case of a war.

whatshisface 3y ago

How anyone can look at over a billion unique people and say "Chinese this" or "Chinese that" is as far beyond me as anything.

makeitdouble 3y ago
I think I'd take a "Ethiopians can't build an AWS rival", even if Ethiopians are unique and intelligent. But that wouldn't be true for China (don't know market sizes, but I'd assume Tencent's cloud offering for instance is somewhat viable ?)
- KRAKRISMOTT 3y ago
  Ethiopians may not, but Indians and to a lesser extent, Nigerians can. The next economic boom after Asia will be in West Africa.
- whatshisface 3y ago
  ...why couldn't Ethiopians build an AWS rival? Google can't build an AWS rival because (ultimately) AWS already exists in the market and has economies of scale. If Ethiopia banned AWS I cannot think of a single reason a cloud hosting provider with perhaps smaller data centers due to the smaller size of the market would show up in Ethiopia.
eru 3y ago
Of course, you can't make universal claims, because there are enough outliers. But you can easily talk about averages and about statistical distributions. Eg I'm fairly confident in saying 'the typical Chinese person eats a fair amount of rice'.
seanmcdirmid 3y ago
In the same way that anything done in America is reduced to 美国人 in China.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago

That weird to say. Many of the SWEs working on OS in the west are Chinese. They have the skills, but it’s just too easy for China to use Android or Linux, or to get the nice Apple experience, then to spend much investing in making their own OS for nationalistic reasons. They have larger problems in terms of semiconductor development and jet turbines that need gobs of resources and have much more national security impact.

eru 3y ago
Linux is an interesting example. There's no need to make your own Linux, because no sanctions etc can keep you from using Linux. That's also part of why eg the US hasn't needed to make their own Linux. There's no risk that your Linux supply chain will be cut off in case of a war.