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by bnomis 4225 days ago
I've often thought one could make an economic argument against filtering. But for that to work, those in charge need to care about the losses. I think of it like those Mastercard ads https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GofscoXnpDw

"Losses due to filtering: X yuan. The illusion of control: Priceless. Some sites we like, for everything else there's the GFW."
1 comments
jackvalentine 4225 days ago
You could also make an economic argument for filtering: the infant industry argument.

Protection from the west by the great firewall has made Chinese services flourish.

Compare this to say, Japan, where the native social network Mixi has been practically destroyed by foreign competitors.

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ninjin 4225 days ago
> Compare this to say, Japan, where the native social network Mixi has been practically destroyed by foreign competitors.

Or, maybe it was that Mixi had been lagging behind for ages and deservingly died off. You might also want to add that Line [1], a domestic company (well, subsidiary of a South Korean company, but still...), is now pretty much dominating the market.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_(application)

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precisioncoder 4225 days ago
In fact it's so good that it's now making inroads in Europe and North America. If you play internet games many of the guilds require members to use LINE. I picked it up to chat with friends in Japan and love it, I'm now trying to get my friends to switch over.
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jackvalentine 4225 days ago
> Or, maybe it was that Mixi had been lagging behind for ages and deservingly died off.

Lagging behind who? ...foreign competitors. I'm not saying Mixi was great, but if it didn't have to deal with facebook/twitter/instagram/naver LINE then it would have had a much greater chance of remaining relevant.

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bnomis 4225 days ago
Many sites and services are certainly flourishing here. But I think many would any way because they are in Chinese (understandable) and local (faster, even without the GFW). And some are just better, WeChat and Taobao for example.
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jackvalentine 4225 days ago
> But I think many would any way because they are in Chinese

Any serious service is localised in Chinese.

> and local (faster, even without the GFW)

Any serious service would use a Chinese CDN or host servers inside China.

> And some are just better, WeChat and Taobao for example.

Would WeChat and Taobao have reached critical momentum if they were subjected to the full force of competition in their early phases? It's impossible to know of course, but it's something to consider.

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