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Are most of those numbers that surprising considering China's population? To me, it's not very interesting that a country with a huge population has a huge amou

by cmelbye 13y ago

Are most of those numbers that surprising considering China's population? To me, it's not very interesting that a country with a huge population has a huge amount of graduates, etc.

jfoster 13y ago
I think the interesting thing is how little awareness of all of it there is in the US. It's easily explained (language barrier) but many people probably think that Twitter is the most active micro-blogging service in the world, that PayPal is the only really huge payments service, or that Amazon and eBay are the major players in ecommerce. For any service you can think of in the US, there's one in China that might be even bigger.
- seanmcdirmid 13y ago
  > but many people probably think that Twitter is the most active micro-blogging service in the world It is. Weibo doesn't do well outside of China, it is not international like Twitter is. > that PayPal is the only really huge payments service From the perspective of a non-China resident, that is definitely true. > Amazon and eBay are the major players in ecommerce Ditto. Though Taobao is trying to become a major international player. > For any service you can think of in the US, there's one in China that might be even bigger. Except the services in the US are mostly international. The services in China are almost always limited to just China. The fact that UnionPay is the largest ATM network in the world (by users...almost all in mainland China) doesn't mean diddly when I visit the Netherlands or India where my ATM card is USELESS. China has decided they can lock out international internet services (via the GFW) and build their own isolated network. Internally, it is huge, but the isolation cuts both ways.
  - turingbook 13y ago
    GFW did do something but can not explain everything. China Internet companies have their own advantages: local leaders can make agile decisions to local market need, employees are more motivated, the management structure is flatter... For example, ecommerce was not regulated much here, but Amazon and eBay were beat heavily by local competitors.
    - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
      This is quite ridiculous. If the GFW didn't block Facebook or Twitter, they would have market shares in the mainland similar to those that they have in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Chinese Internet companies are still quite Confucian in their organization with meaningless titles and lots of seniority plays; they are hardly flatter than the typical American internet company. Many of them still rely on freaking time cards for their tech workers, for crying out loud! Amazon does well in China; we order things from them all the time (even rice).
      - turingbook 13y ago
        >If the GFW didn't block Facebook or Twitter, they would have market shares in the mainland similar to those that they have in Hong Kong and Taiwan. They would have some market shares but not very much, just like Amazon.com is a small player and one of few foreign survivors in China although I also like its service. In the past, MSN messenger, Yahoo, Google, eBay, MySpace, to name a few, all failed in competition with local China players. That is not by chance. As for management, the biggest problem of foreign companies is that decisions especially critical ones are always made in USA, which is normally slow and ignorant. And founders and top guys in China companies(still very young at their 20s or 30s) like Pony Ma at Tencent and Robin Li at Baidu can directly attention the specifics of key products or services even at pixel level. Who will win?
        seanmcdirmid 13y ago
        > They would have some market shares but not very much, just like Amazon.com is a small player and one of few foreign survivors in China although I also like its service. In the past, MSN messenger, Yahoo, Google, eBay, MySpace, to name a few, all failed in competition with local China players. Then why doesn't the CCP just unblock twitter, facebook, g+, and so on? I have a hard time to believe its for reasons of porn (easy to find in the GFW) or subversion (also easy to find in the GFW). And how do you explain Facebook's success in HK and Taiwan? People outside of China just being afraid of Chinese services? That could make sense... > As for management, the biggest problem of foreign companies is that decisions especially critical ones are always made in USA, which is normally slow and ignorant. The biggest problem is that we can't play very well at all in the market. First, foreign companies have to follow all the rules very strictly: local companies have the ability to be "flexible" until (and if!) the government cracks down; they also don't have to deal with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). The lawyers of most foreign companies also won't go near ambiguous China privacy and secrecy laws with a 100 ft. pole, meaning anything that deals with data or communication inside the GFW absolutely requires a local partner (say TomTom). I have friends who worked or are working for local companies, and they tell stories of extreme shadiness. These are not even small no-name companies, but companies you've probably heard of before; I won't name names since the foreign community that works in these companies is very small. They work very hard, but the market is cut throat and they do what they need to do to survive.
itchitawa 13y ago
The same goes for a lot of stats about America. But who notices Israel's massive per capita tech industry?
auvrw 13y ago
yes, china's growth is in large part a brute-force effect. because it encapsulates growth, the size of the economy, and our existing knowledge (i.e. korea and japan are waaay smaller than china), this (d3) graph http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/04/08/business/global/asia-map.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/04/08/business/globa... summarizes the situation better than any of the one-dimensional stats from the article.

by cmelbye 13y ago

Are most of those numbers that surprising considering China's population? To me, it's not very interesting that a country with a huge population has a huge amount of graduates, etc.

jfoster 13y ago

I think the interesting thing is how little awareness of all of it there is in the US. It's easily explained (language barrier) but many people probably think that Twitter is the most active micro-blogging service in the world, that PayPal is the only really huge payments service, or that Amazon and eBay are the major players in ecommerce. For any service you can think of in the US, there's one in China that might be even bigger.

seanmcdirmid 13y ago
> but many people probably think that Twitter is the most active micro-blogging service in the world It is. Weibo doesn't do well outside of China, it is not international like Twitter is. > that PayPal is the only really huge payments service From the perspective of a non-China resident, that is definitely true. > Amazon and eBay are the major players in ecommerce Ditto. Though Taobao is trying to become a major international player. > For any service you can think of in the US, there's one in China that might be even bigger. Except the services in the US are mostly international. The services in China are almost always limited to just China. The fact that UnionPay is the largest ATM network in the world (by users...almost all in mainland China) doesn't mean diddly when I visit the Netherlands or India where my ATM card is USELESS. China has decided they can lock out international internet services (via the GFW) and build their own isolated network. Internally, it is huge, but the isolation cuts both ways.
- turingbook 13y ago
  GFW did do something but can not explain everything. China Internet companies have their own advantages: local leaders can make agile decisions to local market need, employees are more motivated, the management structure is flatter... For example, ecommerce was not regulated much here, but Amazon and eBay were beat heavily by local competitors.
  - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
    This is quite ridiculous. If the GFW didn't block Facebook or Twitter, they would have market shares in the mainland similar to those that they have in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Chinese Internet companies are still quite Confucian in their organization with meaningless titles and lots of seniority plays; they are hardly flatter than the typical American internet company. Many of them still rely on freaking time cards for their tech workers, for crying out loud! Amazon does well in China; we order things from them all the time (even rice).
    - turingbook 13y ago
      >If the GFW didn't block Facebook or Twitter, they would have market shares in the mainland similar to those that they have in Hong Kong and Taiwan. They would have some market shares but not very much, just like Amazon.com is a small player and one of few foreign survivors in China although I also like its service. In the past, MSN messenger, Yahoo, Google, eBay, MySpace, to name a few, all failed in competition with local China players. That is not by chance. As for management, the biggest problem of foreign companies is that decisions especially critical ones are always made in USA, which is normally slow and ignorant. And founders and top guys in China companies(still very young at their 20s or 30s) like Pony Ma at Tencent and Robin Li at Baidu can directly attention the specifics of key products or services even at pixel level. Who will win?
      - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
        > They would have some market shares but not very much, just like Amazon.com is a small player and one of few foreign survivors in China although I also like its service. In the past, MSN messenger, Yahoo, Google, eBay, MySpace, to name a few, all failed in competition with local China players. Then why doesn't the CCP just unblock twitter, facebook, g+, and so on? I have a hard time to believe its for reasons of porn (easy to find in the GFW) or subversion (also easy to find in the GFW). And how do you explain Facebook's success in HK and Taiwan? People outside of China just being afraid of Chinese services? That could make sense... > As for management, the biggest problem of foreign companies is that decisions especially critical ones are always made in USA, which is normally slow and ignorant. The biggest problem is that we can't play very well at all in the market. First, foreign companies have to follow all the rules very strictly: local companies have the ability to be "flexible" until (and if!) the government cracks down; they also don't have to deal with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). The lawyers of most foreign companies also won't go near ambiguous China privacy and secrecy laws with a 100 ft. pole, meaning anything that deals with data or communication inside the GFW absolutely requires a local partner (say TomTom). I have friends who worked or are working for local companies, and they tell stories of extreme shadiness. These are not even small no-name companies, but companies you've probably heard of before; I won't name names since the foreign community that works in these companies is very small. They work very hard, but the market is cut throat and they do what they need to do to survive.

itchitawa 13y ago

The same goes for a lot of stats about America. But who notices Israel's massive per capita tech industry?

auvrw 13y ago

yes, china's growth is in large part a brute-force effect. because it encapsulates growth, the size of the economy, and our existing knowledge (i.e. korea and japan are waaay smaller than china), this (d3) graph http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/04/08/business/global/asia-map.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/04/08/business/globa... summarizes the situation better than any of the one-dimensional stats from the article.