[dirtyid]

Censorship laws became onerous after 2009 riots. FB/Twitter/Google didn't want to comply either due to politics or cost or combination. If they did, China wouldn't need Aurora to hack dissent gmail accounts, Google would just hand it over legally. Incidentally, after west started ML / mass human moderation Google and Facebook considered returning to Chinese market because it was now cost effective. Oh both companies kept ad sales open and were selling billions per year - they were free to operate in domains where they comply to local laws.

Uber was sponsored by Baidu in China. Baidu is much more resources than any competition / incumbents at the time. Your article suggest regulations killed the industry for everyone, i.e not biased against Uber (and Baidu).

>The country’s first nationwide regulation of the industry was truly bad news for Uber and, if followed to the letter, bad news for the entire industry.

...

>In selling its China business to Didi Chuxing, Uber is getting out of its China operations at the right time and at a reasonable price.