When It Comes to China, Google's Experience Still Says It All - <AUTHOR> https://backchannel.com/when-it-comes-to-china-googles-experience-still-says-it-all-bdc4eeedd32c?source=rss----d16afa0ae7c---4 <comment><USER2> The West and China are playing a global chess game and have been for some time. An impoverished China was not in the West's interests and so they agreed to buy all kinds of lowish tech Chinese made goods. In return most jurisdictions enforced a balance of trade with China, with the exception of the US.

On their end China insisted on joint ventures and technology transfer to the extent Western companies would comply. Western companies were reluctant to give up their best tech so China ended up with last generate tech which, still, was way better than it had. This was a status quo that benefited both sides enough that it worked well enough for 20 to 30 years.

Now the stakes are getting higher. China wants to level up by buying foreign tech companies with, essentially, state capital and the West naturally doesn't see that to be in their interests and so they block those purchases.

The West wants to enter China with their latest internet block busters and China doesn't see that in their interests and so they block that but, more often in a soft way. They open the door, allow foreign companies to enter and train locals in the technology and then slam the door when they gain traction.

Both sides are well aware of the stakes and the situation what's evolving are the techniques and strategies of the competitors. It's a big boy's game for large nation states and if you're not that big you're likely to take some bruises. If you're a fan of raw capitalism though pull up a chair and a beer and watch the game.

<comment><USER3> It seems to me that China outplayed the West here by a wide margin.

For some reason, the West has let China get away with extremely protectionist trade policies the likes of which no one else in the world would dare even attempt. I think this was a combination of fear that isolating China vs creating a high degree of economic interdependence could lead to war down the line, and a lack of control over Western companies who sought to break into China.

The situation today is deeply concerning. I think Western nations need to take dramatic action to curb / disincent China's protectionist policies and let their market open up to the rest of the world. If they won't truly do so, then the West needs to respond in kind.

<comment><USER4> Why is it a problem if China develops a higher GDP than the US. Its not a problem for the people. It might be a problem to politicians that want to tell a story, but wishing china to do worse economically is truly backwards. If china comes out with better technology than the us, better products and services, cheaper and all that, the whole world gets better. If you dont believe that, then you must for the sake of consistency think that products that come out of the us into other countries are vultures in nature and draining in economic terms.

A more mature approach would be to think what to learn and do(or not do) when someone is showing great signs of progress. Getting more products from China makes the whole richer. China's protectionis policies are probably harming them more than helping them, why play in the same game.

<comment><USER5> China is repressive and has very low standards for human rights. If China becomes more powerful they may decide to conquer the US properly. This may be along way off but this is the fear that's behind not wanting China to surpass the US economically.

<comment><USER6> Chinese civilization is different from western civilization, specially in its habit to absorb other culture, instead of conquering them. China had a Mongol dynasty, a Manchu dynasty. But it never rode to the other side of the world to force remote populations to change their religion or political system.

<comment><USER7> This interests me. Do you know of any good books, articles, or other sources I could learn more about this topic? Specifically your first sentence.

<comment><USER8> [https://archive.org/details/problemofchina00russ](https://archive.org/details/problemofchina00russ) Not exactly answers the question, but I quite like Russel's view on this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > As late as this past June, Uber was predicting it would pass its rival > within a year.

This is simply <del>not true</del> (edit: not going to happen). I'm a fan of Uber, but using Uber is kinda like a exotic thing to do (while Didi is more common). Uber can be only used in major cities, on the other hand Didi can be used almost anywhere. Didi simply expand faster in China. (Uber is available in less than 20 Chinese cities while Didi appears in hundreds.)

Also I don't view the merge of Uber China and Didi as a failure on Uber's side. It's more or less a peace treaty or truce (edit: between Uber _per se_ and Didi, yes I know Uber China was merged). Uber-like service is simply too cheap in China for a long time, (I Uber to work for less than $2 for example), and both side cannot hold it any more. It's as simple as that.

(Before the Didi-Uber merge, there's a similar merge of Didi and it's major competitor Kuaidi, thus the full name Didi-Kuaidi, in which both side are Chinese companies and it's just that after long competition investors decided to facilitate a merge. This merge makes Uber the second largest, before that they were the 3rd.)

The story between Google and Baidu is a whole different one. First search engine as a gateway to informations is viewed as vital by the Chinese government and government really worked on Baidu's side.

<comment><USER3> > > > As late as this past June, Uber was predicting it would pass its rival > within a year.

> This is simply not true.

Yes it is true. Kalanick's investor updates from 24-12 months ago were all gung ho on China and how Uber was seeing as much or more success there as any Western country ever had. Their _explicit_ goal was to outcompete Didi and become the #1 on-demand service in China ( _on-demand_ generally... not just for transportation). Their timeline for winning majority market share was 12-24 months out, and that is how they justified the extremely, extremely aggressive cash burn in the market. (Nobody burns $1B+/yr in cash gunning to grow slowly into second place.) Believe me when I say that several billion dollars of raised capital and $10B+ of Uber's imputed valuation was attributed to their potential in China, their growth there, and their plan to dominate in the next 12-24 months.

What evidence have you that this is "simply not true." Some of these statements to investors have become public knowledge, which you'll see with a simple google search.

Just one of many articles and quotes from this timeframe outlining Uber's explicit goal of becoming dominant in marketshare in China within a year: [http://www.digitaltrends.com/business/uber-beat- didi/](http://www.digitaltrends.com/business/uber-beat-didi/) Note as well how cocky and aggressive Uber was here in their marketing, public statements, etc.

> Also I don't view the merge of Uber China and Didi as a failure on Uber's > side.

It was absolutely a failure. Uber's goal was to beat Didi and dominate in China, as is their goal in every single market they enter. Did they succeed or fail in that goal?

Uber did a good job salvaging value here in having its Chinese operation acquired by Didi. But make no mistake, it was a failure and this falls far short of both their intentions and their promises to investors.

Also, this was forced on Uber _by_ investors. People lost faith that Uber could win in China, and rightfully so. The cash burn was staggering and there was no end in sight and no clear path to actual victory, despite the previously lofty updates and promises.

> It's more or less a peace treaty or truce

No. A peace treaty or truce means each side remains independent but they agree to stop warring with each other. This is an outright purchase. Uber lost the war and it's best option was to salvage value in Uber China by merging into a minority, small position (only 18%) within Didi's business.

> Uber-like service is simply too cheap in China for a long time, (I Uber to > work for less than $2 for example), and both side cannot hold it any more. > It's as simple as that.

Yes. It was a war of attrition. And Uber lost the war. As simple as that. That's why it makes no sense that you're framing this as somehow just a "peace treaty".

> Before the Didi-Uber merge, there's a similar merge of Didi and it's major > competitor Kuaidi..

Yes, this was a brilliant move on Didi's (and Kuaidi's) part. On top of this, Didi struck a partnership with Lyft. In terms of military strategy, Didi was encircling Uber on all sides. Instead of having to fight a war on two fronts with Kuaidi and Uber, they used Kuaidi and Lyft as springboards.

This was absolutely brilliant and bold strategy and it's an approach few start-ups could pull off or would even attempt trying. M&A and mergers are extremely complex for start-ups to tackle and this was brilliant strategy.

2 years ago, Uber was playing the role of the big dog and pressuring to buy Didi. After Didi's great growth and very effective strategy over the past two years, the roles were totally reversed and Didi bought Uber's China operations for what was ultimately a pittance. 18%, which will be further diluted over time.

> The story between Google and Baidu is a whole different one. First search > engine as a gateway to informations is viewed as vital by the Chinese > government and government really worked on Baidu's side.

I think the governemnt helped Didi quite a bit too. As did Tencent.

<comment><USER9> > What evidence have you that this is "simply not true." Some of these > statements to investors have become public knowledge, which you'll see with > a simple google search.

I'm not saying Kalanick didn't say that, what I meant is it's not going to happen based on my observation. Sorry if it was misleading.

> No. A peace treaty or truce means each side remains independent but they > agree to stop warring with each other. This is an outright purchase.

What you said make sense, but I see this as a truce between Didi and Uber _per se_ , not just Uber China. Uber lose a battle on Chinese turf to Didi and sold this branch in exchange to some share of Didi. But Uber still exists. I don't view this as a victory of Didi either, they simply defended their home turf. What we may see next is maybe they will compete in SE Asia or India. It seems like Didi is more ambitious on things like this.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for explaining / clarifying.

> I don't view this as a victory of Didi either, they simply defended their > home turf.

I think this is where we disagree. It was definitely a victory for Didi. They beat Uber in China, which is the market they care most about.

Moreover, they have aligned themselves strategically. They now have a stake of Uber as well (don't forget Didi also invested $1B in Uber and as a result achieved information rights on Uber). They have partnerships with Grab in SE Asia and Ola in Inida. Lyft in the US. They continue to encircle Uber...

Whereas a year ago, an Uber investor could've reasonable thought Uber was on a path to domination worldwide... today it's clear that their potential is greatly diminished from those lofty possibilities. They are removed from China outright. They are being confronted by an opponent that has already beat them in SE Asia and perhaps in India. Who knows what is next in Europe and the US.

Didi has been absolutely brilliant here, and they deserve full credit for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Uber felt it was treated fairly by a government

> my guess is that if [...] had been more successful, China would have put a > Mao-sized thumb on the scales.

This is how it lost me, it shows how light he is on facts.

I do agree with the 2 statements "China is protectionist" and "protectionism is bad".

But I am cynical enough to see that everyone carefully pics which protectionism they complain about.

As a Brazilian I am still waiting to hear Americans, Japanese and Europeans complaining about their own farming protectionism, at least as loudly as they complain about other countries.

<comment><USER11> Farming protectionism is different from other protectionism, because self- sufficient farming is a national military security goal. If a nation gets into a huge war, then you want to still be able to feed the people.

In general any nation would want to be self-sufficient in all basic necessities, that would come under threat in war time.

<comment><USER10> Well, that's exactly my point and that's exactly what hypocrisy looks like.

Every protectionism is different because ... reasons. There will always be an "what if..." to justify everything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> China is a peculiar case. It has embraced parts of capitalism that ensure market growth. The huge domestic market coupled with aggressive stealing of IP to create cheapest-in-the-world knock-offs have fuelled its exports. However, having this selective breed of capitalism has allowed its leadership to sidestep aspects of American capitalism e.g. influence of corporations on leaders. This means that companies don't have the same lobbying power in influencing policy/laws/IP etc. So basically we have this wealthy nation with its leadership not generally obliged to listen to either market or its people. So they do what they want to do.

Its like the skinny kid hit the gym, made a ton of money and is now back in the neighbourhood throwing its weight around.

<comment><USER13> > However, having this selective breed of capitalism has allowed its > leadership to sidestep aspects of American capitalism e.g. influence of > corporations on leaders

This is not a surprise if you understand China's political culture and its long, long history.

For literally thousands of years, political elites in China have understood that political power follows economic power, which is why the richest in China are generally Party members and high officials.

When Deng Xiaoping said "let some people get rich first", he meant those with political connections.

American politicians and citizens allowing corporate interests to slowly take over the political process is due to not understanding how history works.

<comment><USER14> > which is why the richest in China are generally Party members and high > officials.

Wouldn't that be the case with pretty much any totalitarian regime?

> American politicians and citizens allowing corporate interests to slowly > take over the political process is due to not understanding how history > works.

I'll take the flawed lobbying system over the Chinese system any day.

<comment><USER13> > Wouldn't that be the case with pretty much any totalitarian regime?

No. There are plenty of totalitarian regimes where any actual wealth held outside of a tiny ruling clique is considered unacceptable.

China's trick is that they 1) embraced de facto capitalism and 2) managed to spread the wealth amongst a relatively large Party base (as a % of the population) while _still_ maintaining insider control. That's a very, very fine balancing act, and most authoritarian regimes can't manage to do it, leading to either failure to sustain economic growth (e.g. Russia, or North Korea) or complete loss of control to new economic elites.

In fact, Xi's anti-corruption campaign may potentially destabilize the Party because it breaks the implicit contract that has kept the Party together for the last 3 decades (namely, support the Party, and we'll look at the other way on corruption).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> _According to reports on the ground, Didi used its local knowledge to act more nimbly in satisfying Chinese customers. But my guess is that if the American ride-sharing company had been more successful, China would have put a Mao- sized thumb on the scales._

So Didi was actually better; it's a bit unfair to say that otherwise the game would have been rigged.

<comment><USER9> Didi seems to be better at e.g. customer service. For example, their support can be reached by phone, and Uber support can be only reached via Email.

I'm sure people know, in China, call center operates way cheaper than in U.S. This and the fact that people are unwilling to use Email are some of the major sources of complaint on Uber I've heard about.

<comment><USER16> If thats true, Uber was simply being incompetent here. We recently launched a shop on Tmall (Alibaba version of Amazon), and you usually hire a local agency to provide customer support for the chinese. 80% of the traffic is mobile, so they use SMS and phone calls a lot, emails much less than in the west. Also chat, they expect to be able to directly talk to someone via chat from the website.

Not doing so means disregarding local habits, good luck with that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I really dislike this tone of China acting fundamentally badly. It's their country, they can do whatever the heck they want. If they want a local replacement for everything already existing outside of Chine, so be it. If you just let established big players have all the cake, chances for success of local competitors become pretty slim.

Stealing trade secrets if of course not okay, but that is more of a theoretical argument, the west probably has his fingers equally deep in the Chinese cookie jar. If you make agreements and China later unilaterally breaks them, that is of course also not okay.

But investors don't seem to care, it's not that nobody knows what to expect, but the lure of huge profits seems to win again and again.

<comment><USER18> "stealing of trade secrets [...] is more of a theoretical argument"

I just wanted to point out this pretty amazing sentence.

<comment><USER17> What is so amazing about this sentence?

<comment><USER19> in theory it's stealing something very very very abstwact?

<comment><USER17> It is of course theft, my point was that I assume the west is also taking whatever they can get so that it would be hypocritical to blame China for doing it.

<comment><USER20> Eh, that's kind of rationalizing away the threat posed by China's habitual targeting of US military tech, specifically in aviation.

I'll believe China has corrected its dirty sourcing ways when they build their own reliable Mach 2 Fighter Jet from scratch without reading Lockheed's homework first.

<comment><USER17> Where is the difference to what the USA and USSR respectively Russia did and probably still do to each other? Or the USA allegedly still spying on Airbus? If everybody does it, why only blame China?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Don't kid yourself thinking that the US is above those tactics. They might use some other techniques but it is in many regards just as protectionist as China.

One common theme is completely exaggerated fines leveled against foreign companies. Look at the banks: while doing very little to punish U.S. banks (if you take net transfers into account) who where without a doubt the main culprits in the sub-prime crisis and thereby causing a global financial crisis, the U.S. almost exclusively punished foreign banks - and with that also foreign tax payers - for wrong doings like dealings with countries the U.S. dislikes, etc..

Another striking example is the fines imposed in Volkswagen. While it certainly was immensely stupid to cheat on the emission test, the fines are completely over the top: $16b and counting. After every state and agency is through with VW, it might be $30b or more. At the same time, U.S. car companies that caused actual casualties with there shoddy engineering are left of the hook with a slap in the wrist.

Some sources:

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/12/22/isnt- it-s...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/12/22/isnt-it-strange- that-the-us-gets-to-fine-alstom-a-french-company-for-bribery-not-in-the- us/#28903e6c2de3)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/business/dealbook/volkswag...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/business/dealbook/volkswagen- faces-harsher-penalties-than-a-us-company-might.html)

</comment><comment><USER22> > But my guess is that if the American ride-sharing company had been more > successful, China would have put a Mao-sized thumb on the scales.

Anyone remember when GM had to be bailed out, but at the time, they were actually generating profits in China and it was one of their few bright spots? Ford likewise. I just don't buy this.

<comment><USER23> Well some members of my family own a factory making car parts. Many parts ship to Ford plants in China. China recently created a new rule saying Ford cannot buy parts from the US. So we either had to build a plant in China, or stop shipping to Ford. We stopped shipping to Ford. They were our largest customer.

<comment><USER24> Wait, what? Can you point us to the rule? It sounds like the WTO might be interested.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> "Put simply, China likes locals to succeed over foreign companies, and will act accordingly."

This is SO Un-American!

</comment><comment><USER26> Haven't noticed that anyone is talking about the fact that just a week ago, the Chinese government issued a press release about "legalizing" ride-sharing apps [1][2]. Article 21 of the new law, which should take effect this November, basically says that subsidizing the drivers would be illegal, effectively killing Uber's strategy.

The Uber case is classic in China, governemnt using "laws and regulations" to kill foreign businesses. Didi's competitive advantage was just being Chinese, nothing else. Now that Uber has surrendered, I wonder if the regulations will actually be implemented.

[1] [http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2016-07/28/c_129186192.ht...](http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2016-07/28/c_129186192.htm) (Official press release in Chinese)

[2] [https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/28/china-issues-guidelines- to...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/28/china-issues-guidelines-to-legalize- ride-hailing-apps-like-uber-and-didi-chuxing/) (Article in English)

</comment><comment><USER27> Remember this, If you do not like the status quo in China, then stop supporting it. As American companies economically invaded other countries, much of the culture became the norm. If you think censorship, collusion, corruption, disparity et al are ok traits for a society, then by all means keep inviting them into the country to control more and more of American culture.

</comment><comment><USER28> Most successful nations today did protect their markets and relied on tight government coordination when they were doing catch-up after WWII: Japan, Korea, ,Taiwan, France, Germany, Finland, ...

The question we should ask is how much is proper and beneficial. Asking China to play the same game as already developed nations is not fair or realistic.

</comment><comment><USER29> Making deals with someone who has an entirely different value system is dangerous, especially when there is no neutral institution to enforce those deals. Western companies doing business in China are lead by a mixture of braveness, greed and naiveness, I guess.

</comment><comment><USER30> Articles like these never fail to drive home just how much of a US patsy the EU has always been.

<comment><USER31> Unlike the EU, China has the capability to build companies that could rival top US players. So it's unsurprising that China takes the uncompromising approach to foreign investment that they do.

I'd love to see an American's reaction to a speech where Xi Jinping exclaims that he will ensure that all Americans start using Baidu as their search engine.

<comment><USER30> Europeans had been promised and conditioned that their countries would give a shit about privacy. It would have seemed unlikely to European founders that they'd be _allowed_ to run a blatant commercial spyware operation like Google or Facebook; and in fact I'd bet that they would have met _fierce_ regulatory resistance... until Google and Facebook waltzed in from the US and surprise, nobody put up any resistance until the war was won. Yeah, sure, long _after_ the war was lost, some EU regulatory theater.

I actually bought a N900 back in the day. It was _good_. Nokia smartphones could have been a thing, not just because they were good, but they'd taken off just a few years later _especially_ on privacy grounds. There's not nearly enough conspiracy theorizing about Elop blatantly Osborning Maemo...

<comment><USER32> > Europeans had been promised and conditioned that their countries would give > a shit about privacy

Do Europeans really care that much about privacy? As an outsider, I don't see much fighting for privacy coming from Europe.

> blatant commercial spyware operation like Google or Facebook

What kind of regulation do you think would stop this "spyware" as you call it? Are you really going to restrict an internet firm from collecting user information with the user's consent and then selling that information? What regulation would you do?

Something like "right to be forgotten" is the absolute worst direction to go. When I first heard about it, I knew the regulators were idiots. That is patently opposed to free expression.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The article is off-the-topic.

It states clearly, Uber hasn't got to the state that Chinese government would put the thumb on the scale, but go straight and use Google's example to picture what would happen if Uber ever close to domination, in order to resell pieces of his book about Google's exit from China.

He might be right. Chinese government is as shady as it has ever been. But since Uber hasn't ever got close to what Google has been in China(Google has been close to dominate the market back in 2009), and their completely different nature of business, Uber's failure in China resembles very little to what forces out Google.

I won't go in deep analysis why Uber decided to make the move. But bear in mind, China has its own internet ecosystem, because the infamous Great Firewall, to the point, the government publish pieces that the 'internet' will keep functioning even US decides to cut China off, showcasing how 'secure' and isolated it is. When it comes to internet, I cannot remember what foreign services cannot be replaced by local counterparts. Besides, those local companies are very successful, Tencent and Alibaba are both 100B worth company, they both invest huge money in Didi. And when it comes to internet, China is pretty much catches up to U.S. in terms of technology. If the situation is reversed, would you ever believe Didi can compete with Uber here in U.S.? I don't think so. And for Uber, China is something good to have, but for Didi it is that they couldn't afford to lose, the determination to battle to the ground is different.

</comment><comment><USER34> Not to mention China's state sponsored thefts of American IP (esp tech), which is no doubt being used in Chinese carbon copy corporations protected behind the great firewall.

<comment><USER35> I'm probably opening myself to accusations of whataboutery but it's not like America has never partaken in state sponsored industrial espionage: [http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/10/nsa-busted- conducting...](http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/10/nsa-busted-conducting- industrial-espionage-in-france-mexico-brazil-and-other-countries.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> This is horseshit nationalism, again. What Chinese companies have made huge inroads into the American tech world? Every time they do, some commentator (probably the same guy who wrote this article) will show up to shake a big stick at them and try to chase them off, with tales of impending Chinese takeover.

The real story, there and here, is one of large corporations using whatever means they can, including their friends in local government, to increase their own power.

<comment><USER32> Money infiltrates politics because politics has power that normal money can't achieve. Remove that power from politics, and the money will leave as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> duplicate of this:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12218211](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12218211)

<comment><AUTHOR> My bad, didn't see Steven himself posting it! Not sure why he used a different title than the one he chose for his own publication.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> It's actually worse than described in this article. XiJinPing is beyond ruthless, law is meaningless. Even this under-describes the reality.

<comment><USER39> Your comment should be the foundation for discussion about China nowadays.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> A few important segments that really seem to get buried in the rest of the text.

"This is not to say that Chinese government regulation drove Uber's deal with Didi, which was clobbering Uber in the ride-sharing market; in fact, Uber felt it was treated fairly by a government interested in transportation innovation. According to reports on the ground, Didi used its local knowledge to act more nimbly in satisfying Chinese customers.

...

Google's retreat came in 2010, so it's fair to ask whether those regulatory issues still exist.

...

To be fair, the American marketplace has not exactly been a fertile ground for Chinese internet companies hoping to break in. Though many of the really big players — Baidu, Alibaba, TenCent, WeChat — have moved on from clone-ish beginnings and actually come up with important innovations, none have made an impact here. But that's due more to a lack of resolve than any regulatory barriers."

</comment><comment><USER41> I wish more countries would support their own brands as much as China.

<comment><USER42> Political correctness is the plague of our time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Protectionism and currency manipulation in a free trade setup will end badly. Every trade deal we do needs to address these issues with consequences.

China joined the WTO in Oct '01 and full participation in '05, the US has suffered since then.

Problem is sometimes our greed drives these deals over long-term futures. The time of selling out the whole country with non-protectionism for a country that does protectionism and currency manipulation is truly a catastrophic deal for trade partners futures.

</comment><comment><USER44> The "local knowledge" argument doesn't hold much water. The reason is any company entering China hires natives and people who in theory (and at the level they hire at) are quite capable of rivaling those who work for companies in that country.

</comment><comment><USER45> I'd say Chinese government's position is well justified, given every presidential candidate in last 30 years competed to trash it. You want an enemy, you'll get one.

</comment><comment><USER46> It is their country, they can do whatever they want. I think USA should do whatever it wants too, like blocking Chinese tech companies in the USA.

<comment><USER47> The US doesn't need to - as the article indicates, most Chinese tech companies have no interest in operating outside of Asia. To give some concrete examples: WeChat (微信), which is entirely ubiquitous in China, has essentially zero market share in the US - parts of the app aren't even localized to English! Baidu is the biggest search engine in China, and it doesn't have an English version. Alibaba operates one of the world's largest online stores (like Amazon), but has no presence in the States. And so on.

Western tech companies want in on the Chinese market, but by and large, the reverse is not true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Weird that all those tech company didn't learn from the car industry trying really hard in the 90s to dominate the Chinese market.

</comment><comment><USER49> Are there any cast studies on multinational companies that were successful in China and outlined why? Companies like Danone?

<comment><USER50> Sure. There are tons. Starbucks is everywhere, KFC, McDonalds, Walmart is doing okay along with Carrefour. Apple ofcourse is completely crushing the phone market (and it's not just so they can employ a few factories of manual laborers) Car comapnies do just fine. I'm sure there is a ton of industrial espionage and technology transfer from government to local companies (hard to explain some advances otherwise.. ), but articles screaming about Chinese protectionism mostly stink of "bad sportsmanship". Some of these companies just blew it (Uber and Ebay) or they're social media platforms. The reality is that the government wants control over the media and what 99% of people hear and read. So platforms like Facebook or Google (with their vague moral obligation about not being "evil") make them very nervous. I talked to a Malaysia Chinese guy who supported the censorship and he explained it this way. In the third world (esp if you look at the middle east) there is a huge problem of misinformation and hysteria. People eat up all sorts of conspiracy theories and factoids gets spun out of control and can't get contained. In a country with lots of superstitions like China that's almost doubly worrying. So the government seems it in it's interest to control that kind feedback loop (obviously in part to keep itself in power... you could see some local protest about some minor issue blowing up into a national protest) So in general once some social media platform seems to get a critical mass it gets either brought down a peg or brought into the fold somehow (like Tencent buying League of Legend and some Android game)

I'm not condoning their policies, but they have their own internal consistency that's a little more nuanced then just "fuck the foreigner companies"

<comment><USER51> Car companies do fine in weird ways: Buick is a super luxury prestigious brand in mainland China because 100 years ago, some of the first cars imported were Buicks... In the USA it's seen as your grandfather's land yacht.

<comment><USER52> It's also because companies can completely rebrand themselves when they go abroad (as do humans sometimes, go figure).

PBR is sold as a premium beer brand in China, and in Korea, VWs are considered luxurious. Pretty ironic, seeing as it's name literally means people's car in German.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Encrypted communication would be the next game changer.

</comment><comment><USER20> Thanks, Nixon.</comment>


Sex, Lies and Julian Assange - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2012/07/19/3549280.htm

<comment><USER2> Just read the article (it takes about 30 minutes). This was the best account that I've read of the entire situation and has now educated me on to the "dragnet" that surrounds Julian Assange.

The TL;DR summary is that everything points to Sweden having being coerced at every juncture (by the US), and the Swedish police failing constantly.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>----

I'd never actually been clear on what the "sexual assault/rape/molestation" charges were with Assange, but from the transcript, these charges were filed after two women Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilen went to the police to seek advice if they could compel Assange to take a STD test since they did not use a condom during sex.

It's unclear from the transcript, but from what I have read, these two women knew that he was sleeping with both of them. Both of the women went to the Klara police station in central Stockholm, however, it is mentioned that Ardin had gone along primarily to support Wilen.

Ardin had been frequently in the company of Assange. She had previously described him as such a "cool man" (Twitter). They also arrived and left together at a Crayfish party (equivalent of a cocktail party). Ardin was sharing accomodation with Assange and had refused an offer from someone else for temporary accomodation.

The day after the accusation of rape and molesation Ardin sent a SMS saying : "I've just spent some time with the coolest people in the world".

SMS text messages were also exchanged between Sofia and Ardin, which showed that the two of them knew of the relationship between each other and Assange.

Ardin responded to a friend who was looking for Assange : "He's not here. He's planned to have sex with the cashmere girl every evening, but not made it. Maybe he finally found time yesterday?"

The Swedish police, totally railroaded the investigation. Interviews have been leaked with Assange, and Wilen commented _initially_ "that she became so distraught she refused to give any more testimony and refused to sign what had been taken down.".

Assange went freely for interview to the police station and was released without immediate charge, and was free to travel. Almost immediately there after, another warrant was issued for his arrest.

Eventually, it was also upgraded to a "Red Notice". To put it into context, a red notice for such a trivial charge with a previously willful and responsive person is unusual.

> The president of Syria does not have a Red Notice alert. Gaddafi in Libya, > at the same time Julian's arrest warrant was issued, was not subject to a > Red Notice but an Orange Notice. It was an incredibly... it was incredibly > unusual that a red notice would be sought for an allegation of this kind.

It's alleged (from the transcripts), that Sweden has frankly always been the United States' lap dog and it's not a matter we are particularly proud of. The Swedish Government has... essentially, whenever a US official says, "Jump", the Sweden Government asks, "How high?"

Assange's legal team are clearly trying to point out that US is coercing all of this behind the scenes so that he can then be extradited from Sweden and face trial for conspiracy to commit espionage.

> The burden should be on the United States Government to say, "We are not > planning to prosecute Julian Assange". If they just gave that assurance, I > can guarantee you that Julian Assange would go to Sweden tomorrow.

<comment><USER3> > _Eventually, it was also upgraded to a "Red Notice". To put it into context, > a red notice for such a trivial charge with a previously willful and > responsive person is unusual._

A "Red Notice" is just an Interpol request for a member country to issue an arrest warrant for a person wanted in another member country, with the expectation that the person will be extradited to the country seeking the arrest. (Interpol does not have the power to issue arrest warrants on its own.)

<comment><USER4> Interpol requests like that are rare event reserved for server international crimes. The total number for 2011 was just 7 000 requests, which was substantial larger than for 2010 which was the year the Julian Assange notice was requested. To take it into context, a brutal murder where you have witnesses to it and the murder "suspect" flee the country, you still do not request a red notice. In the Swedish police words (asked by reporters), requesting help from Interpol is only done in exceptional cases where such expenses and laboure can be justified.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Small cited section from the article: "You only need to look at the way that Red Notices are used around the world. Red Notices are normally the preserve of terrorists and dictators. The president of Syria does not have a Red Notice alert. Gaddafi in Libya, at the same time Julian's arrest warrant was issued, was not subject to a Red Notice but an Orange Notice. It was an incredibly... it was incredibly unusual that a red notice would be sought for an allegation of this kind."

And the allegation is accusation of sexually assault of the lowest degree. The lowest. Accusations. If Anders Breivik fled out of jail from Norway, he would be unlikely to receive the same high international legal attention that Assange got. It things like that this that causes people to loose trust in the legal system, especially the Swedish legal system.

<comment><USER5> _Red Notices are normally the preserve of terrorists and dictators._

The Wikipedia page says that red notices are: _Requests (provisional) arrest of wanted persons, with a view to extradition._ :

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpol_notice>

From the page, I can't work out what other notice would have been appropriate in its place. I do, however, have a massive headcold today, so please let me know if I've missed something obvious :)

<comment><USER4> The appropriate method is to issue an arrest, then using informal channels to the UK police asking for assistance. Interpol notices are for extreme rare exceptions. If one would to be used for any common crime where the accused has left the country, the list would become useless. We would end up with a list somewhere around 200 000 - 1 000 000 people, not 7,678.

It somewhat like bringing in tanks, bombers, and a nuclear missile in handling a shop lifter running away from the store. It might work, but appropriate action it is not. Equal to the law it is clearly not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How solid is the claim in this video that US Grand Jury #10GJ3793 is for wikileaks? FYI there's a link here to something associated with it as well...

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/07/15/wikilea...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/07/15/wikileaks- grand-jury-witness-publishes-first-account-of-prosecutors-questioning/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Amazing how legal systems are made to bend at the will of biased government interests. If the leaks from Assange were from North Korea or any US "enemy", he'd be getting diplomatic immunity or any other kind of law bending to protect him. The worst thing is, it's not just the US. The US just has more power to do so. This world is damned.

</comment><comment><USER8> What all this stuff ignores is that it would easier for the US to get him extradited from the UK than it would be for them to get him from Sweden.

</comment><comment><USER9> The charge is that he had consensual sex with these women and prosecutors decided it was "rape" because they didn't use protection. Weeks after the fact, when they wanted him for other reasons. They aren't even claiming that it wasn't consensual.

Thus the only thing I wonder about this case is how can anyone pretend like this is a legitimate warrant?

Everyone consented, there was no crime. Forget about who Assange is, or that this came up after he became very famous, or that the US might be trying to extradite him. None of that matters- there isn't even an alleged crime here[1].

[1] I'm using the word "crime" here in the moral sense. There are lots of things that are not crimes but that are against the law. Since governments are not beholden to morality, laws that cause the violation of rights are themselves crimes. So, something simply being illegal doesn't make it a crime.

<comment><USER10> Please don't write a (top-level) comment if you don't have time to read the article.

EDIT: The parent comment has now been edited to remove the original starting sentence: "I don't have 46 minutes to spare on a strong headline, but I will say this...".

<comment><USER9> I did read the article. I saw nothing in it that contradicts my position. I haven't seen any statements from others that contradict my understanding of the facts.

Your comment doesn't provide me any understanding of your disagreement with my position.

<comment><USER10> Your original comment began by stating "I don't have 46 minutes to spare on a strong headline, but I will say this...".

You have since edited that out. So you appear to have read the article after writing your comment.

On your last sentence: I didn't comment on your position one way or the other.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Origins and History of Unix, 1969-1995 (2003) - <AUTHOR> http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/html/ch02s01.html <comment><USER2> The much more comprehensive history is Peter Salus's A Quarter Century of Unix, now online as page scans at [http://wiki.tuhs.org/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=publications:qc...](http://wiki.tuhs.org/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=publications:qcu.pdf)

<comment><USER3> And many details about BSD history in the first chapter of "The Design and Implementation of the 4.4BSD Operating System"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > (...) the direct challenge to the discourse of "free software" that Torvalds > himself had never been interested in mounting. (...) "Free software because > it works better" easily trumped "Free software because all software should > be free".

I think Torvalds would decidedly have _not_ been interested in that thesis. For example, while git has proven more popular and is probably now technically superior to its chief predecessor BitKeeper, Linus would have been content to continue using that proprietary tool had it not been for the reverse engineering "incident" of 2005 that led to git's conception.

Linus appears driven instead by pragmatism, making use of what is practically available - proprietary or open - while building that which is not, should the path be clear in how to do so.

<comment><USER5> ...and free software worked better.

That's precisely the author's point: Torvalds interest in free software is practical, not ideological.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If anyone is interested, I made a catalogue of UNIX-repos that I found online, I setup a gitlab account for all of it, with automated mirroring, here is the link [https://gitlab.com/users/UNIX- history/projects](https://gitlab.com/users/UNIX-history/projects)

If you know a repo I don't have here, let me know

<comment><USER7> Not a repo, may be one somewhere though:

[http://www.nesssoftware.com/home/mwc/source.php](http://www.nesssoftware.com/home/mwc/source.php)

(Considered buying Coherent way back in the day)

There is an empty repo by this name in your project so I'm a bit confused whether this one is supposed to be included:

[https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history- repo](https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo)

<comment><USER8> Diomidis Spinnelis' work is amazing.

You can read about it here: [https://www2.dmst.aueb.gr/dds/pubs/jrnl/2016-EMPSE-unix- hist...](https://www2.dmst.aueb.gr/dds/pubs/jrnl/2016-EMPSE-unix- history/html/unix-history.html)

(link is from the github README)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It isn't clear from this link, but this is a chapter from "The Art of Unix Programming" by Eric Raymond

<comment><USER10> Right. The taoup in the link does give a clue to those in the know, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I had seen this a while ago, a brief diagram of Unix history, on Éric Lévénez's site:

[https://www.levenez.com/unix/](https://www.levenez.com/unix/)

The page also has some Unix history and related links.

</comment><comment><USER11> The interesting thing about the second-system/third-system distinction is that it gives a strong impression that no one really knew exactly what an operating system should be until various examples were built. Arguably, that leaves open the possibility that further forms of OSes exist but aren't easily found due to the difficulty of putting together a system.

<comment><USER12> So many layers are now built on top of the OS that it seems the most obvious way it will continue to grow is by gradually subsiding abstraction layers above that are so common, you'd never not want them.

This has already happened with things like sound drivers, TCP/IP stacks, firewalling, etc. but will continue upward

<comment><USER13> There must be an upper limit though. Most of those things are invisible resources for users to do other work or play.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> *NIX, drives most of the world and is the reason why we exist the way we do today. It's also the reason why Google, Apple and other smaller outfits exist today.

<comment><USER7> Agreed mostly, although I imagine VMS would have filled roughly the same ecological niche had UNIX not carried the day.

Or maybe that's just optimism that something would have survived Microsoft's onslaught. The days when it looked like Windows was going to rule the world were quite dark.

<comment><USER15> That's an interesting path to think about. Minus UNIX, I'm curious where MVS, OS/400, VMS, MPE, DOS/Windows, etc, would have all played out.

<comment><USER16> well VMS still exists .... both as itself and as the underpinnings of WindowsNT (and modern windows)

<comment><USER17> Many are still around to some degree. OS/400 is now IBM i. MVS is now z/OS (for IBM mainframes). OpenVMS as you say. Most of the operating systems that were originally written for minicomputers aren't radically different in fundamental design from Unix and Windows NT.

My suspicion is that, absent Unix or something that followed a similar historical trajectory, these OSs would have had a longer run as non-legacy products, the landscape would have been even more fractured than it was with the Unix wars, and Windows would have become more dominant in the server space than it eventually became.

The question I really don't know the answer to is whether, given the rise of the mainstream Internet, an open source operating system and infrastructure software necessarily would have followed. Or would the world look very very different.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


500 Startups to openly solicit for new seed fund - <AUTHOR> http://www.pehub.com/2014/06/500-startups-to-openly-solicit-for-new-seed-fund/

<comment><USER2> More info here: [http://500.co/invest](http://500.co/invest)

"To learn more about our fund offerings, please provide us with some information about yourself and your interests ... If you are selected, you will receive access to our investor presentation and related fund materials via SeedInvest..."</comment>


What if everyone is solving the wrong problem? - <AUTHOR> http://skim.me/blog/?p=441

<comment><USER2> Most startups I see are solving first world problems.

Ignoring the fact that there are billions of starving people.

<comment><USER3> Isn't the internet a first-world phenomenon? How can a starving person access the web through an $X00 device?

The gap between the 'top 1%' in America and the rest of us, is as nothing compared with the gap between America and the third world.</comment></comment>


YC is now a FreeBSD donor (FreeBSD powers HN) - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/sama/status/529337083635048448 <comment><AUTHOR> You can donate to the FreeBSD Foundation here: [https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/](https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/)

Help fund an open-source OS that is foundational in a lot of infrastructure and get a nice tax write-off!</comment>


This 'Do Not Disturb' Light Fends Off Chatty Coworkers - <AUTHOR> http://www.citylab.com/tech/2015/01/this-do-not-disturb-light-lets-you-avoid-office-conversations/384683/

<comment><USER2> Good idea, idiotic implementation.

It's not on the computer that you must hook the led, it's on the brains of the programmer!</comment>


Spark is now Particle - <AUTHOR> http://blog.particle.io/2015/05/13/spark-is-now-particle/

<comment><USER2> So how will Particle prevent name clashes better than Spark?

[http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=toc&state=4803%3Am...](http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=toc&state=4803%3Am4ye88.1.1&p_search=searchss&p_L=50&BackReference=&p_plural=yes&p_s_PARA1=&p_tagrepl~%3A=PARA1%24LD&expr=PARA1+AND+PARA2&p_s_PARA2=particle&p_tagrepl~%3A=PARA2%24COMB&p_op_ALL=AND&a_default=search&a_search=Submit+Query&a_search=Submit+Query)</comment>


Ask HN: How do I stop my neighbour flying their drone over my house? - <AUTHOR> My neighbour must have recently purchased a drone, and they fly over my garden and house relatively regularly.
It is difficult to find exactly which neighbour it is that has the drone, as I live in a relatively built up area. The drone is a DJI phantom, and has a camera attached.
Should I leave a sign in big litters on my lawn saying "please do not fly your drone here"
Or do I contact the police? <comment><USER2> Unless they are spying on you you have little recourse... the government considers anything above your property that's navigable airspace as a public thoroughfare so they have the right to fly through it... they cant spy on your sunbathing daughter but if they catch a glimpse flying by there's nothing you can do. Its based on this case [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Causby](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Causby) I would also suggest against taking matters into your own hands to shoot down the drone or some jamming device as messing with aircraft in flight is a big no no even if its just a little drone. its a safety thing

i cant find the original video i watched but here are some other sources [https://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/when-a- drone...](https://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/when-a-drone-flies- over-my-house-is-it-trespassing.html) [https://phantompilots.com/threads/flying-over-private- proper...](https://phantompilots.com/threads/flying-over-private-property-is- illegal.104094/) [http://www.droneguru.net/can-drones-fly-over-private- propert...](http://www.droneguru.net/can-drones-fly-over-private-property-and- how-to-stop-them/)

<comment><USER3> Depends which country he's in. In the UK you're not allowed to fly them within 50m of people or property without permission.

[https://www.caa.co.uk/Consumers/Unmanned- aircraft/Recreation...](https://www.caa.co.uk/Consumers/Unmanned- aircraft/Recreational-drones/Permissions-and-exemptions-for-drone-flights/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Insane idea here, have you thought about just asking him not to?

"Hey neighbor, I was wondering if you might do me a small favor. I noticed your new drone, it's very cool. I'm sure you get lots of cool pictures and footage, but it makes me a little bit uncomfortable when you're flying over my garden and my home, do ya think you think you could still get your footage from outside of my property's airspace?

Thanks pal, I appreciate it."

<comment><USER5> OP mentions that he doesn't know which neighbor owns the drone. If he's in a neighborhood like mine, he may only have line of sight of his most immediate neighbor and past that it could be any of dozens of other houses within close proximity.

<comment><USER4> Hm, I skimmed over that.

He may have to follow the drone home next time he sees it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> First stop would be the municipality, to see if this can be resolved in a non- legal way, second would be the police because flying drones over built up ground is illegal in many places, finally, recording people without their consent is illegal in private space (such as your garden).

I'm not the nicest person in the world and if someone flew a drone over my garden I would ignore it but if they would hover there long enough for me to be irritated I just might attempt to bring it down.

That would at least force the owner to identify themselves and I can afford to replace the drone if ordered to do so by a judge.

<comment><USER7> > _recording people without their consent is illegal in private space_

Not if it's visible from the public space.

OP should check the local laws first. It's possible he had no recourse, depending on how high the drone flies. It's not like airplanes need your permission to fly over your property.

<comment><USER6> The air above your garden is not exactly 'public space'.

People will put all kinds of visible barriers around their house to get some privacy, hovering your drone over those barriers is clearly a breach of sorts.

Depending on where this is happening the laws will vary but here is one example from the UK:

[http://www.prettys.co.uk/drones-and-the-law](http://www.prettys.co.uk/drones- and-the-law)

<comment><USER2> is OP in the UK as I understand the drone laws any airspace over your house is a public thoroughfare

<comment><USER8> In the UK you cannot fly drones near any houses or person (less then 50 meters)

[https://www.gov.uk/government/news/drones-are-you-flying- you...](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/drones-are-you-flying-yours-safely- and-legally)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can't we jam these signals yet?

DIY method: [https://makezine.com/projects/build-wi-fi-drone-disabler- wit...](https://makezine.com/projects/build-wi-fi-drone-disabler-with- raspberry-pi/)

Pro Method: [https://www.droneshield.com/blog-content/2017/1/14/drone- def...](https://www.droneshield.com/blog-content/2017/1/14/drone-defence- jammers-101)

Seems to me with DIY method you aren't breaking any FCC regs (uses a wifi de- auth). Still I would do it out of direct line of sight (hidden/obscured area) in case operator catches you on camera.

When you pick it up just ask them to kindly come by and pick it up.

Being nice works well when people are doing questionable things (and possession is 9/10 of the law if they are not nice in return).

<comment><USER10> >you aren't breaking any FCC regs (uses a wifi de-auth)

Has the FCC's enforcement been successfully challenged in court? Because last I knew their interpretation of 47 USC 333 explicitly considered monkey business at layer 2 or above to be within scope of malicious interference.

<comment><USER9> And here is a better definition. It appears you are correct by my interpretation of this simple FAQ:

[https://transition.fcc.gov/eb/jammerenforcement/jamfaq.pdf](https://transition.fcc.gov/eb/jammerenforcement/jamfaq.pdf)

\- For example, jammers can: prevent your Wi-Fi enabled device from connecting to the Internet

\- A jammer can block all radio communications on any device that operates on radio frequencies within its range (i.e., within a certain radius of the jammer) by emitting radio frequency waves that prevent the targeted device from establishing or maintaining a connection.

And more is in there. Judging by these definitions the FCC believe they have a pretty wide reach:

\- Any device that jams or disrupts cell phone calls, text messages, or other wireless communications by emitting an interfering radio frequency signal is illegal

As you stated, the courts would have the final say.

I guess with a 'Monetary Forfeiture' being the punishment I have to retract my suggestion. You are better off breaking it with a rock, spear, or a shot-put!

<comment><USER11> Sling-shot would be my favorite choice. Buy lead fishing weights for ammo - they're cheap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I would try to target the drone and record its activity.

If you can documentos that it is flying too much over you, you can take action.

If that fails you can learn tensorflow and target the drone camera with a (low power) laser.

Don't fry the camera justo point the laser at the objective while it is flying and voila: privacy happens.

<comment><USER13> Whatever you do, _do not shine a laser into airspace_. This is how you get a visit from the FAA, who do not mess around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Depends on where you live. Check your local laws about flying drones over populated areas and houses.

</comment><comment><USER15> Don't forget to film this happening, repeatedly.

If you can show it's much more than a one-off, and how low the drone is, etc., you may get a more sympathetic reaction from authorities. Whether it's the police, a court, or whatever.

In addition to drone use and behavior, specifically, many communities have nuisance laws and ordinances.

If your neighbor is making a nuisance of themself, the "drone" part may be incidental in getting the behavior to stop.

Best wishes.

P.S. For example, you may have a perfect right to use a leaf blower on your yard. But if you are compulsive with it and spend 2 - 3 hours every day blowing every last speck off your lawn and driveway, you may be found to be a nuisance.

</comment><comment><USER16> Bigger drone

</comment><comment><USER17> I also have a drone if the person does not all the rules this is the best advice I have for you, record the action of the Drone,find out who it is resolve the problem with the drone pilot or the police........ obviously if somebody has a drone they should know all the rules and regulations

</comment><comment><USER18> Like this obviously

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOnjlyZf6LE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOnjlyZf6LE)

<comment><USER19> Toilet paper seems to work just fine.

[http://i.imgur.com/c74fETo.gifv](http://i.imgur.com/c74fETo.gifv)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> How about neighborhood flyers warning that a drone was watching your kid get dressed. That ought to do it. (Kidding, more or less.)

</comment><comment><USER21> You could fly after his drone with your drone and see who it is!

</comment><comment><USER22> You can try to grab it for you with a net or something.

<comment><USER23> That sounds so impractical and difficult (even impossible...). It is hilarious though to imagine what sort of reaction the drone pilot would have.

<comment><USER24> Use a net dropping drone to fly above, match its movements, and deploy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Have you considered taking up the hobby of falconry?

</comment><comment><USER26> Shotgun?

<comment><USER25> You'd want to be very careful with that. Shooting a gun in the air isn't the most wise choice. Not to mention that you should expect a law suit. My understanding is the results have been mixed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> catapult</comment>


Relativity: the special and general theory by Albert Einstein - <AUTHOR> http://books.google.com/books?id=gQ8LAAAAYAAJ&dq=special%20general%20relativity%20einstein&pg=PR3#v=onepage&q=&f=false

<comment><AUTHOR> I read this book while I was on vacation (on a beautiful beach). It's surprisingly approachable; best explanation of relativity I've found so far. Granted, it was written by Einstein himself.</comment>


Marissa Mayer gives all Y employees an iPhone 5/Nokia Lumia 920 / Android phone - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2012/09/16/marissa-mayer-gives-all-yahoo-employees-an-iphone-5-or-nokia-lumia-920-android-phone/

<comment><USER3> I understand the concept behind what she is doing... but she should focus on making the employees happy through getting them working on meaningful and innovative products and not by just giving them a bunch of free stuff. I have multiple contacts at Yahoo and all of them will tell you that the stuff they do there is mainly just maintenance work. And I've heard the same story from all of them: they only work a few hours a day. The rest of the time they are playing basketball, working out, or doing power yoga or pilates. It seems that their priorities aren't in order.

<comment><USER4> > I understand the concept behind what she is doing... but she should focus on > making the employees happy through getting them working on meaningful and > innovative products and not by just giving them a bunch of free stuff.

Giving them smartphones that are used by their majority of their users and employees will understand the pain points felt by them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Perhaps Mayer should have randomized distribution so that Yahoo's mobile offerings would be consumed by employees via all three platforms. Perhaps the downside is that loyalists to a particular platform would just use their personal phones instead if another platform was forced upon them.

<comment><USER6> Superficially that seems ok, but it won't come across that way. By letting the employees decide for themselves they will feel far more empowered - <USER2> that against "a random number generator says you get this phone - deal with it".

And what will happen in the good teams is that they will work it out amongst themselves. And maybe they'll get them in proportion to the market, or maybe they will swap phones every month, or maybe they will come up with other good ideas. But if they don't feel in control they are far less likely to act as though they are.</comment></comment>


Were U.S. Diplomats Attacked in Cuba? Brain Study Deepens Mystery - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/23/science/cuba-diplomats-health.html <comment><AUTHOR> Wikipedia has a background on 'Havana Syndrome' [0]. The July 2019 study discussed in the article is paywalled but can be found in [1]. 'Havana Syndrome' has been previously discussed on HN [2] [3].

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana_syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana_syndrome)

[1] [https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article- abstract/27385...](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article- abstract/2738552)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18426129](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18426129)

[3] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15460539](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15460539)

</comment><comment><USER2> Discussion yesterday: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20508269](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20508269).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, for some reason I thought to search 'Havana' but not 'Cuba'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This will likely never be solved unless a "counterpart" steps forward. It's been going on for so long and we have little more than when it started.</comment>


Bootbox.js - alert, confirm and dialogs for Twitter's bootstrap framework - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/makeusabrew/bootbox

<comment><USER2> That makes using Bootstrap easier. If that actually also wrap JQueryUI, it would be a killer.</comment>


Kevin Rose Goes Part-Time at Google Ventures to Find His True North Again - k-mcgrady http://recode.net/2014/08/15/kevin-rose-goes-part-time-at-google-ventures-to-find-his-true-north-again/

<comment><AUTHOR> Silly question: Doesn't this violate any sort of non-compete that Google would setup? I know they're usually gentlemen's agreements but what was the point of the acqui-hire of Milk if everyone quits afterwords?

<comment><USER2> Not a silly question at all, I'm also interested.</comment></comment>


You will never escape ads by paying for content - <AUTHOR> http://zen.lk/2015/07/19/Why-you-will-never-escape-ads-by-paying-for-content/ <comment><USER3> Doubtful. Many websites across the Internet are ad-free when you pay for it, such as Ars Technica [1] and Slashdot [2]. Many apps do the same thing, offering In-App Purchases of "Disable Ads, $0.99". People wouldn't offer the option unless (1) they're inept and illogical or (2) it actually makes money. I'm willing to bet it's the latter.

And even then, people love getting rid of ads. Whether you're blocking them with AdBlock Plus [3] or blocking things in a hosts file or firewall [4], or even just pirating things outright [I'm not posting a link to TPB], people hate having their minds filled with garbage.

It's a waste of time, waste of space, and honestly will just disappear asymptotically. It will probably never leave us entirely, but it will effectively be gone (as far as I know).

[1]: [http://arstechnica.com/subscriptions/](http://arstechnica.com/subscriptions/)

[2]: [http://slashdot.org/faq/subscriptions.shtml](http://slashdot.org/faq/subscriptions.shtml)

[3]: [http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-percentage-of-Internet- user...](http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-percentage-of-Internet-users-that- employ-AdBlock-Plus-or-similar-ad-blocking-plugins)

[4]: [http://community.skype.com/t5/Windows-desktop- client/Tutoria...](http://community.skype.com/t5/Windows-desktop- client/Tutorial-How-to-disable-Skype-advertisements/td-p/3316902)

<comment><USER4> The fundamental disconnect is this: Advertisers are willing to pay more for a split second of my attention when I'm casually browsing than I am to pay for all of the content I come across.

Of course, not all sites are created equal. I'm willing to pay for Netflix to get rid of ads in TV, I pay for Spotify so there are no ads in my music, and I pay for Kindle books, so no ads there either. But I also make a lot more money than the average person, and am a lot more invested in the media I consume than most people. Yet, even for me, a lot of the stuff I access online I'm accessing very casually, and would never pay a significant amount for. It's not that I don't care for it to exist, but I'm not invested in its existence enough to pull out my credit card.

Basically, ads everywhere are your tax for using the Internet.

If, theoretically, some micro-tipping system worked out, where you filled up your wallet with $x/month and it was drained each time you visited a site, my guess is people would be blown away at how expensive it was to brows the Internet.

To make such an ad-removal system work at scale ( to make ads "disappear"), you would either have to 1. Have every site with an opt-out ad system, or 2. have every site do that and lock people out who don't pay.

#1 will never happen, because Facebook knows it makes more from advertisers than you will pay. #2 will never happen because most people _won 't_ pay for content - only a few sites can get away with that, and just barely.

<comment><USER5> > The fundamental disconnect is this: Advertisers are willing to pay more for > a split second of my attention when I'm casually browsing than I am to pay > for all of the content I come across.

It would be interesting to have a browser extension that kept a running tally of how much advertising revenue has been generated by your browsing. "You have seen $x of ads today"

<comment><USER4> Some adblock extensions have that function as a number. You could estimate that with a CPM, but the price of ads varies greatly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Okay, let's try an obviously ridiculous thought experiment:

Can we apply the same argument to physical books?

I bought a book a few weeks ago for about $20, from a physical book shop. It is a non-fiction book. It is pretty good. I am about 2/3rds of the way through it. The book contains no advertisements. Shock! Why is this?

I suspect the argument is glossing over a few details!

Maybe we could get a firmer idea by trying to quantify things. E.g. estimating _how much_ people would pay, and _how much_ that would be worth to potential advertisers, etc.

<comment><USER7> But that works for movies. When you go to the cinema, you pay, yet you get ads before the movie and sneaky product placements during the movie.

<comment><USER8> There are adverts in books too. A friend told me to read a new Bond or a Bourne book (can't remember) and it was one long series of product placements.

<comment><USER9> That was "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo", which was full of paid product placements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > So the more you pay to keep ads away, the more advertisers will pay to put > them back in

Except people are not paying to keep ads away, that's the point. Basically what happened to artists 10 years ago is happening to ad backed websites :Most People just don't want to pay for content on the web, period. Online advertising won't save the Buzzfeeds or the dying press when people use ad block massively. They'll have to find other ways to make money.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is exactly the reason why you pay for newspapers and magazines. Newspapers and magazines make ~90% of their revenue from advertisements. (Or at least they did before the internet killed their business model) If they made the newspaper free, it would increase their distribution by an order of magnitude or so, and since advertisers pay rates based on readership, you would think that would also increase their revenue a similar order of magnitude.

But it doesn't work that way -- paying readers are worth a lot more than users who didn't pay for the newspaper / magazine.

</comment><comment><USER12> Quarterly Earnings Reports.

You start a startup and offer subscriptions for content. You go public and everything is great. Then you have a bad quarter. Then another. Your stockholders are going to pressure you to find ways to quickly increase revenue (because thinking further into the future than a quarter is for losers, right?). You introduce ads. You have an amazing quarter. Then another. About this time your core user base is exiting for a new startup with a subscription model and no ads. You then have a string of bad quarters. You're in a downward spiral. Was, Rinse, Repeat.

<comment><USER13> Right now I m staring at twitter picture content on my Android notification area. Are they gonna be ads soon?

Most executives will carefully introduce ads by making A/B testing. So your scenario can only be made true by blind and dumb executives. And yes they are many.

<comment><USER12> They are neither blind nor dumb. However, they can only see in green and have a single-minded focus on seeing more green.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> In the cases that I can't escape ads by paying, I tend to move away from the content with ads.

For example, Hulu - I was a paying customer, but the relentless advertising drove me away. It's slightly different with HBO Now - I get ads, but for other entertainment on the same provider; this is much less bothersome. Ars Technica: I'm not a subscriber, I read often, but I tolerate the laser-focused advertising because the content is excellent, the ads are not obtrusive and they actually target me quite well.

tl;dr- It's always more complicated than a simplistic blog post indicates.

<comment><USER15> I also ditched Hulu over the ads. Their app kept crashing my Roku as well. Either one of those would have been enough reason. Who wants to pay someone to lob obnoxious ads at them?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Totally agree with the author.

Obligatory quote by Bill Hicks: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5LEYG5TqaI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5LEYG5TqaI)

And a deeper analysis by George Carlin: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RW2JInyMoPc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RW2JInyMoPc)

</comment><comment><USER17> Well as most people point out, while advertisers want to get to people with "buying power" not everyone selling content to such people is willing to be a shill for them.

Or put another way, there are plenty of content creators who would create entirely advertising free experiences for their content consumers if they could make a living doing that.

What I find more interesting is that there is advertising that I like/seek out, for example back in the day Byte magazine had advertisers who by their nature of establishing a relationship with BYTE were much less likely to be frauds and they sold things that readers were interested in (parts, computers, boards, Etc.) But there was an interesting level of annoyingness they stayed below.

I pay for the Economist and read it on my iPad. The experience is largely advertising free, and the ads it does have do not annoy me. This could change of course, but then I would probably stop subscribing. It was less clear cut with the NYTimes which I subscribed too and it still had annoying ads, I complained a couple of times, and then eventually stopped subscribing.

And then there are the ads themselves. Something that is clearly a problem is ad "networks" can have a lot of crap in them, and those are both annoying and sometimes borderline fraudulent (or actually illegal in the case of the Canadian pharmacy ads). That the networks replaced a staff of sales people who were trying to sell businesses ad space on a month to month, week to week, or day to day basis makes for a very expensive proposition for a content provider. And yet it makes for a better experience for their reader if they express an editorial sentiment over the advertising content as well. (which print magazines have always done) The first startup I joined was doing a magazine about Golf on the web in 1995. That startup was very interested in ads that reflected the mission of the web site and were not "crazy". It made for a better user experience.

</comment><comment><USER18> If you go back in time cable used to be something you paid for not to have ads. Now look at us dumb folk, paying for cable/satellite and paying to see ads. Books are also filled with ads - if they mention a product by name - <USER2> likely it is placed there - American Psycho wow could not get past a page mentioning some list of products...

<comment><USER19> Not arguing your larger point, but in American Psycho, the endless lists of brands and clothing labels illustrate the protagonist's obsession with surface appearance and the signals of wealth and status. It's one place where I think the brand barrage is well-placed and even subversive—because who wants to be like Patrick Bateman?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Interestingly, Google has just launched a project to test that theory: [https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/](https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/)

What happens when you let readers become bidders in the ad auction for their own attention?

<comment><USER21> Ah, fantastic. You're telling me I get to _pay_ in order to have my screen real estate chewed up by "thank you messages," get "fewer ads on _some_ websites," _and_ I get to have all of my browsing behavior tracked, too?!

What a steal!

<comment><USER20> You of course don't have to... In which case you get your screen real estate (and computer cycles and attention) chewed up by ads, get fewer ads on _no_ websites, and get to have all your browsing behavior tracked too.

Alternatively, you can install an ad-blocker, which will never be supported by sites that run ads (so will break them in exciting ways), can come with its own can of worms regarding tracking your browsing, and puts a publisher in a tragedy of the commons where if enough people go that road, they can't generate ad revenue and will have to seek other options (see sibling threads for side-effects).

Alternatively, you can seek out media that is entirely ad-free of its own volition; you'll curtail your own consumption, but it's an option.

It's a wide, free world out there.

<comment><USER21> Or Google can also try to put forth a serious proposal for what they're clearly acknowledging as a problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I run a web site that produces original content at significant cost. We charge a small monthly fee for access. We don't carry ads, and have no plans to.

That being the case, how exactly is someone who values our content and pays us for it going to get more ads as a result, no matter how much any third party might want to advertise to that person through our site?

<comment><USER23> Does your website have a business development team that discusses the best way to drive revenue for the enterprise? If not, you may be comparing apples to oranges.

<comment><USER22> No, it's not really that kind of site. But then many of the sites I value myself and the content I read also aren't that kind of site.

There are plenty of people in the world willing to produce good content without trying to maximise every last drop of potential revenue, and who for whatever reason prefer not to carry ads next to that content. Some of them just blog for fun. Some, like the site I mentioned, charge to cover the costs and maybe make some modest profit, but in a niche market you're never going to become the next Google or Facebook anyway. Sometimes the whole site is run for reasons other than direct profit anyway, for example if the site itself is a promotional exercise for some brand or store or charity awareness campaign or freelancer, or if it's some sort of community or government site with its costs covered by other means. None of these sites need to carry the kind of ads I think we're talking about here.

Of course there are also sites that are very commercial in nature and do want to do everything they can to maximise revenues. If that means carrying ads, they'll do it. But as long as those sites aren't the only places you can find good content, the original premise will be flawed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Ads aren't bad by themselves. Annoying ads that take my time and focus away are bad (for example video ads are mostly annoying as they always take my time away even if it's just a few seconds)

<comment><USER25> > Ads aren't bad by themselves

That is not something that everyone agrees with (although neither is what constitutes an "ad"). There are obviously grey areas and arbitrary lines get drawn, but I personally feel like the whole concept of intentionally trying to influence someone to buy/consume/want something that they don't already desire is a a little ethically dubious.

<comment><USER26> Agreed.

I consider it psychological manipulation. Nothing more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is the most ridiculous, hyperbolic, clickbait bullshit I've ever seen (today).

First contradiction: "you will never" and "With the way the world currently works". Which is it?

Second contradiction: "you will not escape ads by paying for your content" and "So the more you pay to keep ads away, the more advertisers will pay to put them back in." No. If you are paying for your content, by definition there are no ads. If advertisers outbid you and get ads into the product, then by the definition you are only partially paying for the content. To maintain your "I pay for my content" status you would demand the ads be removed or stop consuming from that publisher.

And no, the solution isn't to make advertising illegal. It is to render it irrelevant, impotent, wasted money. We achieve that with:

\- a reliable fully crowdsourced independent recommendation system that consumers can base purchase decisions on, allowing them to reject ads as biased at best, manipulation and lies more often.

\- a movement where people stop using any ad-supported products[1], realizing that said products are not only _not free_ , they are _more expensive_ [2].

\- shifting all the greatest minds of our generation from working on getting people to click ads[3] to figuring out micropayments, crowdfunding or an entirely new model to make the web accessible to all, without ads.

-

[1] Don't Be A Free User: [https://blog.pinboard.in/2011/12/don_t_be_a_free_user/](https://blog.pinboard.in/2011/12/don_t_be_a_free_user/)

[2] Advertising makes nothing free: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8585237](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8585237)

[3] "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks." – Jeff Hammerbacher, fmr. Manager of Facebook Data Team, founder of Cloudera

</comment><comment><USER28> This is an ingenious observation, but why doesn't the argument work for something Netflix which[1] doesn't have ads.

[1] unless I'm very much mistaken -- I'm not a Netflix subscriber

<comment><USER29> No ads on Netflix unless you count the header on the page giving you a notification that new content is available, the carousel that rotates through new/interesting content, or the suggestion of other things you might be interested in after finishing a movie/series while the credits roll. No external ads, no commercials while you watch, just unintrusive elements that serve to help both the user and Netflix.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Just because you pay for content on a site, and are shown no ads on that site, doesn't mean that site can't make money from ads on your presence.

Isn't the value for online ads in following you around, and showing you targeted ads all over the place?

Why couldn't a site just sell the fact of your presence and use on a site to advertisers, including your habits while on the site? You could still be shown targeted ads elsewhere, and probably never connect it with your use of the original site.

</comment><comment><USER31> My main argument against paying for web content is that people who care about ads probably don't want to see them at all. What's the use to pay for a few sites but others don't offer a pay model and still molest and track you? A better model would be to pay the ad networks which in turn give money to the website operators (similar to those music flats) but I think that's unlikely to happen.

</comment><comment><USER32> Well the problem with this seems to be that it's sort of taking the internet as a whole, of course I wont get completely rid of advertisements but I'd like to get rid of advertisement at least in the services I care about, in this in particular I am willing to pay.

</comment><comment><USER33> Not everything is commercial, and some content (wikipedia, open source software) is free and _not_ ad-supported

</comment><comment><USER34> Simple and to the point

</comment><comment><USER35> just like in-app-purchases.

</comment><comment><USER36> Cable TV was supposed to be TV without ads because you were paying for it. Look how long that lasted.</comment>


Ask HN: Is this useful? - <AUTHOR> I built SuperSelect to make manual/human selection of text and data from the web fast, fast, fast.
https://github.com/atdixon/SuperSelect
The question I have is--is this useful to others? If so, any advice on how to market it so others can find it? <comment><USER2> Congrats on launching it and I think the landing page is well done and the demo works very well. There is a lot of accomplishment in this.

That said, I do not think it is useful for me. I also am happy enough with ctr-c/ctrl-v.

What would be useful for me is a cross-device copy/paste. Ctrl-c at my computer, "ctrl-v" at my phone and vice-versa. No idea how it could be done, just to share a use case I have on this topic.

<comment><AUTHOR> That could be pretty easily achieved. The selections are saved to backend local storage but could easily be switched to use chrome.storage.sync...

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> OP here. I built this as a side-project to help quickly select content from web pages for all kinds of use cases. I was surprised to not find anything else like it in the Chrome store.

For anyone that has built a open-source productivity tool like this... how did you get it out there, market it, etc?

</comment><comment><USER3> > WARNING SuperSelect (and this demo) does not work on mobile and tablet > devices.

I'm not sure since I'm on mobile :)

Have you seen Import.io? From the description it sounds somewhat similar to that.

Edit: Is it like multiselect / multicursor, but for a browser?

</comment><comment><USER4> Really cool from a geek point of view, but I don't see how this replace ctrl + c?

<comment><AUTHOR> I found that dragging a selection, and then using Ctl+C and Ctl+V is very time consuming when needing to select structured data repeatedly. There was also the extra matter of getting the cursor in the right spot without accidentally clicking buttons and links on the page.

So it's really helpful for my use case/s but, yeah, I am curious if my needs are more novel than not.</comment></comment>