Disregarding issues with politics or privacy, I find the rise of Chinese manufacturing quality astonishing. I ordered all kinds of consumer articles in the last 20 years and the improvements have been big and steady. In recent years they also leapfrogged on the service front, like how AliExpress offers Amazon-like return policy despite having fraction of the infra and the wares under tax sanctions. I see not only more chinese cars, but construction and medical equipment. Price/performance is always excelling.
One would think this would trigger some sort of revival and competing from US/EU industries, but not much had happened yet besides lobbying for sanctions.
Unrelated to article per se, but I’ve noticed a distinctive shift as to who tourism-dependent countries cater to. Thailand, Malaysia, etc. all shifted their tourism to cater to the Chinese tourist market, as Westerners don’t spend as big when travelling. Both places have big signs in mandarin in the airport going 友誼長存, meaning long lasting friendship (between our countries). Personally, I’ve never seen this level of glazing towards any Western country before.
Similar thing with luxury brands. While Louis Vuitton is closing stores in SF, they’ve custom built a huge boat-shaped one in Shanghai.
When it comes to luxury, some of this trend is even on the way out. If you at Estee Lauder's earnings calls, they are having serious issues because of the drop spending in duty free zones by Chinese.
Overall you're right of course, just thought I'd add an anecdote that I happen to recall.
You obviously have never set foot in SF if you’re spouting this nonsense. Hey everyone, the city with an insane concentration of wealth and corporations is also a lawless anarchist zone, just ignore your eyes and ears and it’ll make sense…
> Unrelated to article per se, but I’ve noticed a distinctive shift as to who tourism-dependent countries cater to. Thailand, Malaysia, etc. all shifted their tourism to cater to the Chinese tourist market, as Westerners don’t spend as big when travelling.
I don't know about Malaysia, but IIRC Thailand is one of the few places Chinese nationals can travel visa free. Westerners have a lot more options.
If travel restrictions focus the the firehouse of Chinese tourists on a few locations, I'd expect those to end up catering to Chinese more than other nationalities.
Chinese citizens are prohibited from investing abroad and keeping money abroad. It might be that the signs you describe are more about getting around that prohibition than about hedonism.
I’m sure it’s some grey area. DBS Singapore saw some $6bn inflows from China in the first half of 2023. Regardless, I did see gold jewellery sold by weight in China too, which is much more indicative of use as an asset than a beauty piece
I have always thought that this is largely due to the fact that Chinese people still cannot inherit their parents' wealth, and that is why Chinese middle class and upper-middle class people travel a lot more than their Western counterparts. Is it not the case?
I'm not sure what time frame you're talking about, but I lived in Bangkok from 2019 to 2021, and Chinese tourists were all over the place then. That said, the mall next to my apartment no longer has the Incredible Hulk standing in front of it, so maybe you're right and the american influence is fading. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There’s a smaller gap in smartphone makers, where Apple and Samsung dominate globally and in the USA, but once you look at the next manufacturers after the leaders you notice that names like Xiaomi, Oppo, Realme, and Huawei together constitute a sizable global share. And, yes, those are all Chinese brands.
There were a lot more Chinese Android "brands" (most of them probably OEM'd, but I digress) around 10-15 years ago. Ainol, Blackview, Cubot, Doogee, Elephone, Gionee, Goophone, iOcean, Jiayu, KingZone, Leagoo, Meizu, Nckia (yes, seriously), NO.1, Oukitel, TCL, THL, Ulephone, Umidigi, UniHertz, Vivo, Zopo... how many of those still exist today? It's rather interesting that the ones which still do have gone the same user-hostile route as Apple and Samsung. The era of Shanzhai has unfortunately mostly passed.
Author bought a Huawei watch and found it to be an excellent replacement for his Apple watch.
That said, most the article concerns the below bit and I tend to agree with it.
The China challenge is much bigger than alarmists understand.
It’s not just about espionage or market share.
It’s about the United States and the West more broadly losing
preeminence and Chinese firms becoming reliable parts of life.
From a security standpoint: When my data lands in the hands of Chinese interests and USA entities, only the latter is leveraging it against me. In the stack of data risks to be mitigated, China is at the bottom and everyone tied to the US is at the top.
> From a security standpoint: When my data lands in the hands of Chinese interests and USA entities, only the latter is leveraging it against me. In the stack of data risks to be mitigated, China is at the bottom and everyone tied to the US is at the top.
I hope you don't work for a company or know anyone who works for a company or government that China might want to influence, steal secrets from, sabotage, etc; otherwise your information or information that you have about other people could be used against you, people you know, your company, your government, your interests, etc.
Foreign intelligence doesn't always go after people in "important" jobs, they sometimes go after janitors or other people who have access to either facilities or people.
> I hope you don't work for a company or know anyone who works for a company or government that China might want to influence, steal secrets from, sabotage,
Why are we pretending that the US don't do those things?
In Australia there is the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Act 2021. It is speculated that it was passed to plug a capability gap in data collection for Five-Eyes/USA.
as a USian I hope that we do? As a planet of nation-states, China does not have the best interests of US citizens in mind long term, and it would be super neat if they dont usurp Taiwan and subject all of its citizens to its particular brand of totalistic authoritarianism.
The US does not have the best interests of US citizens in mind. It, currently, has the best interests of a select few absurdly wealthy people's interests in mind.
Which, coincidentally, usually happen to be the exact opposite of the best interests of US citizens. Um... oops.
Glad you pointed out such a huge difference with China. The US has an 80 year history of what it'll do. That might not be perfect behavior, but ... frankly I cannot name a single state that has the power the US currently has and behaved even half as well. That includes European countries, who were quite happy to "resolve wars" in other parts of the world ... and then they didn't leave and took over the entire economy, the government, and including levying taxes and stealing resources. Even fucking tiny Belgium abused their position when they got the chance. Hell, Luxembourg, smaller than most New York boroughs, helped them do it (and got paid handsomely for it)
But China ... China is far worse. Tibet, Xinjang, Taiwan, Pakistan, Phillippines, ... all are under attack. Oh, and perhaps relevant: China admitted to direct support of Russia's attack on Ukraine merely because of the small effect it has on naval power in the Pacific [1].
And let's just stop pretending here. Historically, modern European countries behaved exceptionally well (as most states just outright enslaved, as in "work yourself to death or we'll kill you right now" of whoever came under their control). China behaved pretty bad (e.g. killing millions of their own people for political optics. Enslaving people in Xinjang), but frankly not exceptionally bad. The Ottomans did worse (all caliphates did). The Persians did (although they deserve credit for stopping ... at least until the current government). The historical norm of behavior of states is incredibly, incredibly bad. And China has made it very clear they're not changing their old ways, in fact, they've made it very clear they're moving backwards, not forwards. They are moving towards having the state in control of everyone who lives anywhere China has power, on a literal, individual level. What apartment they live in. What they study. What they do. What they watch on TV, on their cellphones, ... This is not even remotely comparable to the worst dreams Trump has ever had.
Sorry to point out the obvious but China is the dystopia, not the US, and the US has a long way down before it gets anywhere close to CCP behavior.
I’ve never seen evidence that US agents attempted to infiltrate Chinese companies to steal their secrets, meanwhile just one recent example is the FBI catching Chinese espionage on camera trying to steal glass trade secrets from Corning, also see the Google employee who tried to steal AI secrets, a while ago it was the Coca-Cola can lining formula
One way to look at the world is if there's no punishment, there was never any crime. It's pretty clear the US has been doing economic spying for at least more than 3 decades [0]. One famous incident I'm aware of was the CIA spying on Thomson-CSF and delivering the intelligence to Raytheon who were competitors in a contract bid. [1]
The thing about defense contractors like Boeing and Raytheon is that if they do receive information from the CIA or NSA, they're not gonna talk about it for fear of losing the existing contracts they have, or losing bids in the future.
I would agree that spying on China is harder than say spying on France. But I wouldn't say it's impossible. The US just has to work 10 times as hard. I would also say that because of the regime, any Chinese turncoats would be have much less loose lips.
Snowden leaks -> NSA operation shotgiant infiltrated Huawei network for years. PRC ministers around then been quoted saying US had thoroughly infiltrated PRC networks. I'm pretty sure it was admitted as much in PLA Science of Military Strategy in 2010s. PRC just doesn't like publicizing how compromised they were until recently, now cybersecurity firms like QH360 regularly report on US cyber infiltration efforts.
James Mulvenon, leading expert on PRC cyber who was one of the loudest sirens 10 years ago also basically said there was mutual offensive attacks - something like "We hack them, they hack us". The distinction Americans and Mulvenon like to make back then was PRC civil military fusion = PRC can economically weaponize hacking, i.e. PRC can pass hacked blueprints to companies XYZ to develop vs US can't because NSA can't pick winners. Which is fair (unless it comes to stuff like Airbus vs Boeing or other strategic industries). But that's just sour grapes for admitting that PRC has a better system for industrial espionage.
Anecdotal, in PRC in the mid 90s, had dinner where diasphora Chinese at western telco was complaining about how PRC started hacking their networks, someone else at dinner worked for domestic telco (trying to poach), and used to technician in PLA sigint unit, complained about how US penetrated most of Chinese networks and lamenting how they were w decades behind in cyber.
us industrialization back in the early days of the country was largely based on illegal IP theft from british factories. thats just how it is when you're behind and trying to catch up
The problem with security is that it's all stick based, not carrots. Nobody gets a raise for following good security practices -- just firing, fines, and jail time. Meanwhile "mass paranoia" masquerades as "security best practices".
The janitor example you bring up is a great example. A decade ago Frontline had a report on female janitorial staff being raped [0]. Instead of providing job security, wage security, and physical security to allow workers to do their job without fear, we threaten them to "be secure or else."
> I hope you don't work for a company or know anyone who works for a company or government that China might want to influence, steal secrets from, sabotage, etc;
It's certainly conceivable that China-based entities might want that. It's almost certain that US- and Israel-based entities do. Hence their relative positions in the stack of risks.
this is so silly. if chinese intelligence tries to what, blackmail me?
Meanwhile silicon valley companies like Palantir are actively feeding information to cops in my county who don't like me because I walk in the pride parade.
The Palantir giving information to cops in the US? Yes, that's their business model, or part of it.
This being used to persecute minorities? IMO, nobody needs to prove this, we can assume it will happen.
Why? Because world governments will always push the envelope to the furthest amount legally. Any tool that can be used for evil, will be used for evil. If you have a database of faces it's only a matter of time before that is used for some sort of profiling.
Don't believe me? Look no further than War. Any invention, in all of human history, that can be used for war, has been used for war. We will develop new and innovative ways to use it. Vehicles, planes, trucks, trains, telephony, electricity, the printing press, the internet, anything and everything.
I’m not the parent but I was going to read that article to see contained evidence of the above. I couldn’t make it past the hyperbolic first paragraph though. I’m not familiar with TechDirt, but is it intending to be tech news or a political activism site?
" the latter is leveraging it against me. " Can you elaborate on how you think that the US entities are using your data against you? And why you are so certain that Chinese entities are not? I'm pretty sure if you lived in Taiwan you would think very differently.
> I'm pretty sure if you lived in Taiwan you would think very differently
Well, I don't.
> And why you are so certain that Chinese entities are not?
It's not that they aren't, but they can't really. What are they gonna do if I make disparaging statements against their dictator? Deny me entry to their country?
Meanwhile America is screening people's social media with immediate effect on careers and livelihood. I don't proclaim to know whether the US will use my data against me but they certainly would have more power to do so against their citizens.
Who you trust really depends on where you are and which countries exert influence in your region. I personally would rather nobody have my data and self host everything.
> how you think that the US entities are using your data against you? And why you are so certain that Chinese entities are not?
Kinda pointing the obvious but...we're straight discussing this on a US forum managed by a US company. The major social media outlets used outside of China are US based. I'm writing this on a US designed device and OS.
If you live outside of the US and China, you're probably giving up tons of data to US entities for sheer convenience while China would need to go hack it. Getting a Chinese OS smartphone would change that a bit, but still not _that_ much IMHO.
> I'm pretty sure if you lived in Taiwan you would think very differently.
This is precisely the point - it matters who the powerful people in your region are. For an American, the Chinese government has little ability and not much interest in persecuting people on the other side of the globe. The US government has lots of ability and moderate interest.
Over 10 years ago we were buying a lot of camping equipment. We had purchased some items from Amazon which looked good visually and they were from one of these mashing-on-the-keyboard brands like "kjhghjdfh". When we received the items they were of AMAZING quality. I wanted to purchase more items from this brand but of course, they were gone.
turns out if you shit on your allies, they'll start doing business with your systemic rival instead
and once their consumers start buying their better products, produced at lower cost, with less political baggage, you aint getting that market share back
and all it took was some facebook ads to get the US to surrender the next century to the Chinese
If we want to catch up, maybe we really need to work a lot harder, and to smooth the shocking pain, some redistribution of wealth to the working class is needed.
Thanks! I chose a title based on a representative phrase from the article, which is what we do if the article's own title/subtitle are too baity or misleading.
if you read that entire article and thought that the salient point was that the author bought a huawei watch, you quite frankly wasted a few minutes of your life! the article was a great reflection on china's increasing share of the global consumer market, and increasing overall brand value; the huawei watch was just a jumping-off point.
From a product standpoint, we're beginning to look at lot more like Europe did to us in the last few decades. The EU couldn't manufacture a cheap consumer item no matter how hard it tried and no matter how much the EU subsidized things. Just too much government/societal bloat. Seems to be the direction we're heading unless we can recapture the "get it done" spirit of old. I don't think we can do that while we're continually focusing on making sure everything is always fair to everyone all the time.
> But a new Apple Watch would cost several hundred dollars, and I can’t justify that. With the discounts, a Huawei watch cost well under two hundred US dollars. And, frankly, it looks better. So I betrayed America. Reader, I bought one.
A more direct way to think about this is that you betrayed yourself by buying things you don't need, regardless of if it came from Apple or Huawei. You could have bought a Casio digital watch that's much cheaper, more robust, more eco friendly, and runs for years on the same battery with no recharging.
> But since the Chinese government already has my OPM file and probably a lot more besides (I worked in the House during Salt Typhoon!), it’s not like I was risking a lot.
I had a watch that was sitting in the closet for a few years (cheap watch, broken strap). It was not only keeping time after several years of neglect, but the time was reasonably accurate. It did not have any high-tech features like time synchronization. It did not even have the benefit of the time being adjusted manually twice a year.
But that's not really the point. For most people a smart watch has as much to do with time keeping as a smartphone has to do with telephony. The devices earned their name due to the form factor rather than the intended use.
Like what? They all have AC and a stereo of some sort. Like WTH else really matters?
TBH most of the feature upsells make so little sense to me (floor mats and real spare tires excepted I guess) that I don't get how they're successful.
I like the auto dim mirrors, but not enough to add a grand to my price.
and a lot more shit to break. nice thing about a cheap car is it has manual seat adjustment, an AC and a radio.
My friend just bought a 20 year old volvo and the locking gas cap malfunctioned while we were being shown the vehicle and testing all the buttons out. The dealer just took a screwdriver and popped the lid with a screwdriver - now the gas cap doesn't latch at all.
Nissan Versa is like my one and only example of a new car that feels so cheap I'd only ever buy new or used as a last resort. It used to be one of the cars that would help make things like the Kia Soul seem amazing in comparison . (And I saw with my current car being too cheap for cruise control.)
No it isn't. If everyone bought new they would have to sell cars for much less money and in turn make less. Most new car buyers can only afford it because of the trade in value, and this falls down the line.
> Chery specializes in making affordable, mass-market cars that look nice. (The entry-level Chery retails in Qatar for about $15,000 USD—try finding a new car of any kind in the United States for $15,000.)
This is because nobody (*EDIT: by which I of course mean relatively few) would buy it. People signal wealth, status, and even personal values by way of their vehicle in the US. Dealership financing departments ask customers how much they can afford per month in payment and work backwards from there to sell them the vehicle that they want at any cost. The average new vehicle price is around $50,000 because people are actively choosing to buy more expensive cars and trucks [1], not because there aren't cheaper ones around, and 96-month car loans are now a thing because of it.
> try finding a new car of any kind in the United States for $15,000.)
> This is because nobody would buy it. People signal wealth, status, and even personal values by way of their vehicle in the US.
Speak for yourself. There are a ton of people who probably make a lot less money than you or I, who would purchase it, where transportation is more important than status.
"It's one banana, Michael. What could it cost, $10?"
I don't even own a car but probably would buy one that cheap. The problem is that we're on Hacker News and aren't representative of the general car buying populace. Many people spend more than 50% of their gross salary on cars because it makes them happy. Manufacturers are giving the public what they want and what people want is bigger cars with more amenities, hence the change in price [1].
Also, as somebody else pointed out, if you value transportation more than signaling then you buy used.
> "It's one banana, Michael. What could it cost, $10?"
I didn't buy a new car until I was well into my 20s and have driven multiple vehicles that were worth no more than their scrap value. That line would probably work better on somebody else, that is, somebody that hasn't apprehensively poured K-Seal into their leaking radiator when they had $600 in their checking account.
I hate dealing with cars and I hate status signalling, and car maintainence, and buying used and buying new are both miserable IMO, and don't have a clear front runner for comfortable low risk purchase that doesn't look like it's way too expensive (anchored by my concept of what cars should cost relative to median income).
My current >13 year old purchased new car has done better than my previous used car. But it's probably not because it was new, so much as because my previous Used car had high mileage and succumbed to the environment. And buying new felt super weird. But now I look at the market and no matter which you buy it seems miserable.
Is there a used luxury model that you can highlight a low TCO for? IE < $20k, won't gulp gas, won't need to see the mechanic except for regular oil change type stuff, won't cost arm and a leg if you do need repairs?
Or a $20-$25k used model that will compare favorably to something like a new Corolla?
Can't tell if I'm missing something or not, but I've never seriously thought that some random used BMW would seriously be cheaper to operate than a boring car unless cars were my hobby.
Because it's probably going to be a lot cheaper to fix basic cars than luxury brand cars (part costs, availability of mechanics that work on those cars)
If you didn't care about status signaling you typically skipped the "new" label (which loses you tons of value right at signing) and bought used-whatever-the-rich-people-were-buying-but-upgraded-from. Well that or "4th hand... but still runs!", depending exactly how much you had and how little you cared.
Though that got a bit screwy with the prices during COVID which is when I switched to new myself (well, that and a >10x increase in yearly salary in that time made getting anything at that time feasible). Things seem to be getting back to a more reasonable place at least now, though still a tad high. The typical calculus will probably get a bit screwy again if electric cars keep on pace combined with the US focusing electric on the high end with 30k being the dream price reduction goal.
> If you didn't care about status signaling you typically skipped the "new" label (which loses you tons of value right at signing) and bought used-whatever-the-rich-people-were-buying-but-upgraded-from.
This is describing a specific kind of person and it is not a general rule, at least not for the last 30 years. I would be surprised if it even applied to a plurality of people, but this all comes down to anecdotes anyway. The narrow examples I can think of are vehicles and, to a lesser extent, game systems. But anyone I knew who wanted to know the time would just buy a $20 Casio watch and, in that same vein, would buy whatever product is the equivalent of a $20 Casio watch in that particular product category.
Buying used anything is pretty time consuming (unless you do no research and just pick the first thing you see) and a lot of people want(ed) to save their money by saving their time (time is money as they say) buying a reasonably-priced new product.
For my entire post college life (think financial crisis +) the difference in price between new and used cars has been inconsistent, erratic, and extremely hard to evaluate. While it's true that cars eventually depreciate enough to be cheaper, I have 2012 model year that's probably worth < 20% of what it was new even with reasonable mileage, when I look at used cars less than 5 years old and without a ton of miles, most models that are considered reliable or remotely popular seem to sell above 80% of new model sticker price, and often are marked at or above new sticker at car lots. Choosing between, say a new Coralla vs. a used Camry seems far removed from what I remember in my youth, which is that for model pairings like that maybe your new vs used model overlap would be another mark or maaaybe something like a Yaris, and you'd be like "buying new is for rubes." But today, you have to spend several days of part time work to figure out something like "a new model a, or b, in price range x or a used model c or d with sub n miles in price range z will have similar TCO, let's see what's out there..."
I think there's a reason that that Slate truck seems interesting to some people, and why people think stuff like the Maverick that has gone from a reasonable deal to a questionable one but still remains popular.
That said, I think it's true that most new car buyers are mostly buying expensive cars and that there aren't many cheaper cars despite evidence that they'd sell. So what I'm curious about is that means 5 years from now people will have to sell them at an increased rate of depreciation or they'll just keep them longer.
In the worst case this seems on the verge of cars being driven out of middle class hands (or houses going from two car to one car) if the median income relative to average car price grows more.
"US. Dealership financing departments ask customers how much they can afford per month in payment and work backwards from there to sell them the vehicle that they want at any cost"
That's a trick to make the car look affordable to people with no finance knowledge. I remember having to ask what the apr is multiple times before they would answer.
I'd definitely buy one! Back in around 2007 I went to the Chevy dealer and said "What's the cheapest car you got" and he said you want a Cavalier... I got it with air conditioning and an automatic for around $12k.
It was a great car at a great price, zero problems.
I don't understand why cars have gotten so much more expensive in the last 20 years. There is definitely room at the bottom for entry level vehicles.
I suspect the problem may be the increasingly strict emissions laws that push the OEMs into preferring certain segments at the expense of others. It might be that it doesn't make sense for the OEMs to pursue the low end market, it's not worth the trouble.
On that page, I clicked on the "Build and Price" button. All that page contains is their SUV models.
I then checked the 5 dealers closest to me. At these 5 dealers, there are only a total of 3 base model cars in inventory, all last years' model: 18k, 18k, and 20.6k
The explanation is obviously the chicken tax and fat profit margins on their larger SUVs.
Disregarding issues with politics or privacy, I find the rise of Chinese manufacturing quality astonishing. I ordered all kinds of consumer articles in the last 20 years and the improvements have been big and steady. In recent years they also leapfrogged on the service front, like how AliExpress offers Amazon-like return policy despite having fraction of the infra and the wares under tax sanctions. I see not only more chinese cars, but construction and medical equipment. Price/performance is always excelling.
One would think this would trigger some sort of revival and competing from US/EU industries, but not much had happened yet besides lobbying for sanctions.
Unrelated to article per se, but I’ve noticed a distinctive shift as to who tourism-dependent countries cater to. Thailand, Malaysia, etc. all shifted their tourism to cater to the Chinese tourist market, as Westerners don’t spend as big when travelling. Both places have big signs in mandarin in the airport going 友誼長存, meaning long lasting friendship (between our countries). Personally, I’ve never seen this level of glazing towards any Western country before.
Similar thing with luxury brands. While Louis Vuitton is closing stores in SF, they’ve custom built a huge boat-shaped one in Shanghai.
This isn't a new trend.
When it comes to luxury, some of this trend is even on the way out. If you at Estee Lauder's earnings calls, they are having serious issues because of the drop spending in duty free zones by Chinese.
Overall you're right of course, just thought I'd add an anecdote that I happen to recall.
While Louis Vuitton is closing stores in SF
There are other reasons besides China causing them to do that.
Yes, such as the complete abandonment of law enforcement in SF.
You obviously have never set foot in SF if you’re spouting this nonsense. Hey everyone, the city with an insane concentration of wealth and corporations is also a lawless anarchist zone, just ignore your eyes and ears and it’ll make sense…
> Unrelated to article per se, but I’ve noticed a distinctive shift as to who tourism-dependent countries cater to. Thailand, Malaysia, etc. all shifted their tourism to cater to the Chinese tourist market, as Westerners don’t spend as big when travelling.
I don't know about Malaysia, but IIRC Thailand is one of the few places Chinese nationals can travel visa free. Westerners have a lot more options.
If travel restrictions focus the the firehouse of Chinese tourists on a few locations, I'd expect those to end up catering to Chinese more than other nationalities.
Chinese citizens are prohibited from investing abroad and keeping money abroad. It might be that the signs you describe are more about getting around that prohibition than about hedonism.
I’m sure it’s some grey area. DBS Singapore saw some $6bn inflows from China in the first half of 2023. Regardless, I did see gold jewellery sold by weight in China too, which is much more indicative of use as an asset than a beauty piece
yeah i dont think this is true. where did you hear this?
I have always thought that this is largely due to the fact that Chinese people still cannot inherit their parents' wealth, and that is why Chinese middle class and upper-middle class people travel a lot more than their Western counterparts. Is it not the case?
I’m not sure what you mean, they have a 0% inheritance tax, and a fully codified succession framework mostly through civil laws.
This is incorrect.
I'm not sure what time frame you're talking about, but I lived in Bangkok from 2019 to 2021, and Chinese tourists were all over the place then. That said, the mall next to my apartment no longer has the Incredible Hulk standing in front of it, so maybe you're right and the american influence is fading. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There’s a smaller gap in smartphone makers, where Apple and Samsung dominate globally and in the USA, but once you look at the next manufacturers after the leaders you notice that names like Xiaomi, Oppo, Realme, and Huawei together constitute a sizable global share. And, yes, those are all Chinese brands.
There were a lot more Chinese Android "brands" (most of them probably OEM'd, but I digress) around 10-15 years ago. Ainol, Blackview, Cubot, Doogee, Elephone, Gionee, Goophone, iOcean, Jiayu, KingZone, Leagoo, Meizu, Nckia (yes, seriously), NO.1, Oukitel, TCL, THL, Ulephone, Umidigi, UniHertz, Vivo, Zopo... how many of those still exist today? It's rather interesting that the ones which still do have gone the same user-hostile route as Apple and Samsung. The era of Shanzhai has unfortunately mostly passed.
Markets tend to consolidate into monopolies, or oligopolies with anti-trust laws in place.
Author bought a Huawei watch and found it to be an excellent replacement for his Apple watch.
That said, most the article concerns the below bit and I tend to agree with it.
From a security standpoint: When my data lands in the hands of Chinese interests and USA entities, only the latter is leveraging it against me. In the stack of data risks to be mitigated, China is at the bottom and everyone tied to the US is at the top.> From a security standpoint: When my data lands in the hands of Chinese interests and USA entities, only the latter is leveraging it against me. In the stack of data risks to be mitigated, China is at the bottom and everyone tied to the US is at the top.
I hope you don't work for a company or know anyone who works for a company or government that China might want to influence, steal secrets from, sabotage, etc; otherwise your information or information that you have about other people could be used against you, people you know, your company, your government, your interests, etc.
Foreign intelligence doesn't always go after people in "important" jobs, they sometimes go after janitors or other people who have access to either facilities or people.
> I hope you don't work for a company or know anyone who works for a company or government that China might want to influence, steal secrets from, sabotage,
Why are we pretending that the US don't do those things?
In Australia there is the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Act 2021. It is speculated that it was passed to plug a capability gap in data collection for Five-Eyes/USA.
as a USian I hope that we do? As a planet of nation-states, China does not have the best interests of US citizens in mind long term, and it would be super neat if they dont usurp Taiwan and subject all of its citizens to its particular brand of totalistic authoritarianism.
The US does not have the best interests of US citizens in mind. It, currently, has the best interests of a select few absurdly wealthy people's interests in mind.
Which, coincidentally, usually happen to be the exact opposite of the best interests of US citizens. Um... oops.
Glad you pointed out such a huge difference with China. The US has an 80 year history of what it'll do. That might not be perfect behavior, but ... frankly I cannot name a single state that has the power the US currently has and behaved even half as well. That includes European countries, who were quite happy to "resolve wars" in other parts of the world ... and then they didn't leave and took over the entire economy, the government, and including levying taxes and stealing resources. Even fucking tiny Belgium abused their position when they got the chance. Hell, Luxembourg, smaller than most New York boroughs, helped them do it (and got paid handsomely for it)
But China ... China is far worse. Tibet, Xinjang, Taiwan, Pakistan, Phillippines, ... all are under attack. Oh, and perhaps relevant: China admitted to direct support of Russia's attack on Ukraine merely because of the small effect it has on naval power in the Pacific [1].
And let's just stop pretending here. Historically, modern European countries behaved exceptionally well (as most states just outright enslaved, as in "work yourself to death or we'll kill you right now" of whoever came under their control). China behaved pretty bad (e.g. killing millions of their own people for political optics. Enslaving people in Xinjang), but frankly not exceptionally bad. The Ottomans did worse (all caliphates did). The Persians did (although they deserve credit for stopping ... at least until the current government). The historical norm of behavior of states is incredibly, incredibly bad. And China has made it very clear they're not changing their old ways, in fact, they've made it very clear they're moving backwards, not forwards. They are moving towards having the state in control of everyone who lives anywhere China has power, on a literal, individual level. What apartment they live in. What they study. What they do. What they watch on TV, on their cellphones, ... This is not even remotely comparable to the worst dreams Trump has ever had.
Sorry to point out the obvious but China is the dystopia, not the US, and the US has a long way down before it gets anywhere close to CCP behavior.
[1] https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/china-says-...
Feel free to criticize the US in a separate thread. I'll join in. Please don't derail criticism by changing the subject.
Did that conversational gambit ever work on your parents?
I am free to talk about whatever I want, and there's nothing you can do about it.
Well, nothing except whining about it. Keep whining.
I’ve never seen evidence that US agents attempted to infiltrate Chinese companies to steal their secrets, meanwhile just one recent example is the FBI catching Chinese espionage on camera trying to steal glass trade secrets from Corning, also see the Google employee who tried to steal AI secrets, a while ago it was the Coca-Cola can lining formula
One way to look at the world is if there's no punishment, there was never any crime. It's pretty clear the US has been doing economic spying for at least more than 3 decades [0]. One famous incident I'm aware of was the CIA spying on Thomson-CSF and delivering the intelligence to Raytheon who were competitors in a contract bid. [1]
The thing about defense contractors like Boeing and Raytheon is that if they do receive information from the CIA or NSA, they're not gonna talk about it for fear of losing the existing contracts they have, or losing bids in the future.
I would agree that spying on China is harder than say spying on France. But I wouldn't say it's impossible. The US just has to work 10 times as hard. I would also say that because of the regime, any Chinese turncoats would be have much less loose lips.
[0] https://archive.ph/YbIMy
[1] https://archive.ph/bGMZn
Snowden leaks -> NSA operation shotgiant infiltrated Huawei network for years. PRC ministers around then been quoted saying US had thoroughly infiltrated PRC networks. I'm pretty sure it was admitted as much in PLA Science of Military Strategy in 2010s. PRC just doesn't like publicizing how compromised they were until recently, now cybersecurity firms like QH360 regularly report on US cyber infiltration efforts.
James Mulvenon, leading expert on PRC cyber who was one of the loudest sirens 10 years ago also basically said there was mutual offensive attacks - something like "We hack them, they hack us". The distinction Americans and Mulvenon like to make back then was PRC civil military fusion = PRC can economically weaponize hacking, i.e. PRC can pass hacked blueprints to companies XYZ to develop vs US can't because NSA can't pick winners. Which is fair (unless it comes to stuff like Airbus vs Boeing or other strategic industries). But that's just sour grapes for admitting that PRC has a better system for industrial espionage.
Anecdotal, in PRC in the mid 90s, had dinner where diasphora Chinese at western telco was complaining about how PRC started hacking their networks, someone else at dinner worked for domestic telco (trying to poach), and used to technician in PLA sigint unit, complained about how US penetrated most of Chinese networks and lamenting how they were w decades behind in cyber.
There are more countries in the world than just US and China.
In the country I originally come from, it was uncovered that the US was spying on one of its companies. Not China, the US.
us industrialization back in the early days of the country was largely based on illegal IP theft from british factories. thats just how it is when you're behind and trying to catch up
The problem with security is that it's all stick based, not carrots. Nobody gets a raise for following good security practices -- just firing, fines, and jail time. Meanwhile "mass paranoia" masquerades as "security best practices".
The janitor example you bring up is a great example. A decade ago Frontline had a report on female janitorial staff being raped [0]. Instead of providing job security, wage security, and physical security to allow workers to do their job without fear, we threaten them to "be secure or else."
If I were China, I know straight where to go!
[0] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/rape-on-the-night...
> I hope you don't work for a company or know anyone who works for a company or government that China might want to influence, steal secrets from, sabotage, etc;
It's certainly conceivable that China-based entities might want that. It's almost certain that US- and Israel-based entities do. Hence their relative positions in the stack of risks.
> you don't work for a company or know anyone who works for a company or government that China might want to [...]
As I read it, yes, parent does not have ties to that category of companies. TBH I don't too.
In contrast we are meddled enough by the US that actively following US national news makes sense from a work perspective.
this is so silly. if chinese intelligence tries to what, blackmail me?
Meanwhile silicon valley companies like Palantir are actively feeding information to cops in my county who don't like me because I walk in the pride parade.
whos more dangerous to me right now.
> this is so silly
Tell that to my former coworker in the U.S. government, that this happened to. I was the person who found out and reported it, and action was taken.
So you were able to report it, and action was taken. When the US sends you a NSL, what do you do?
in the U.S. government
That changes the situation significantly.
" Palantir are actively feeding information to cops in my county who don't like me because I walk in the pride parade."
Can you prove this?
The Palantir giving information to cops in the US? Yes, that's their business model, or part of it.
This being used to persecute minorities? IMO, nobody needs to prove this, we can assume it will happen.
Why? Because world governments will always push the envelope to the furthest amount legally. Any tool that can be used for evil, will be used for evil. If you have a database of faces it's only a matter of time before that is used for some sort of profiling.
Don't believe me? Look no further than War. Any invention, in all of human history, that can be used for war, has been used for war. We will develop new and innovative ways to use it. Vehicles, planes, trucks, trains, telephony, electricity, the printing press, the internet, anything and everything.
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/07/07/ice-using-repurposed-bor...
close enough?
I’m not the parent but I was going to read that article to see contained evidence of the above. I couldn’t make it past the hyperbolic first paragraph though. I’m not familiar with TechDirt, but is it intending to be tech news or a political activism site?
You are not from these parts are you?
" the latter is leveraging it against me. " Can you elaborate on how you think that the US entities are using your data against you? And why you are so certain that Chinese entities are not? I'm pretty sure if you lived in Taiwan you would think very differently.
> I'm pretty sure if you lived in Taiwan you would think very differently
Well, I don't.
> And why you are so certain that Chinese entities are not?
It's not that they aren't, but they can't really. What are they gonna do if I make disparaging statements against their dictator? Deny me entry to their country? Meanwhile America is screening people's social media with immediate effect on careers and livelihood. I don't proclaim to know whether the US will use my data against me but they certainly would have more power to do so against their citizens. Who you trust really depends on where you are and which countries exert influence in your region. I personally would rather nobody have my data and self host everything.
> how you think that the US entities are using your data against you? And why you are so certain that Chinese entities are not?
Kinda pointing the obvious but...we're straight discussing this on a US forum managed by a US company. The major social media outlets used outside of China are US based. I'm writing this on a US designed device and OS.
If you live outside of the US and China, you're probably giving up tons of data to US entities for sheer convenience while China would need to go hack it. Getting a Chinese OS smartphone would change that a bit, but still not _that_ much IMHO.
> I'm pretty sure if you lived in Taiwan you would think very differently.
This is precisely the point - it matters who the powerful people in your region are. For an American, the Chinese government has little ability and not much interest in persecuting people on the other side of the globe. The US government has lots of ability and moderate interest.
>try finding a new car of any kind in the United States for $15,000
you can get a Nissan versa for $17k https://www.nissanusa.com/vehicles/cars/versa-sedan.html
Lowest price on that site is $18,330 MSRP plus $1,140 shipping and handling, not including tax and title.
You can punch a hole in the bottom of a broken down car and Flintstone it for free.
Probably more reliable than a Nissan versa.
Over 10 years ago we were buying a lot of camping equipment. We had purchased some items from Amazon which looked good visually and they were from one of these mashing-on-the-keyboard brands like "kjhghjdfh". When we received the items they were of AMAZING quality. I wanted to purchase more items from this brand but of course, they were gone.
Strong brands are good for the consumer.
"kjhghjdfh" is such a memorable name.
My Nwouiiay car battery charger / regenerator is pretty good, but how careless can you be about choosing a name?
turns out if you shit on your allies, they'll start doing business with your systemic rival instead
and once their consumers start buying their better products, produced at lower cost, with less political baggage, you aint getting that market share back
and all it took was some facebook ads to get the US to surrender the next century to the Chinese
It’s crazy that we got to witness the turning point which will have defined the rest of our lives.
If we want to catch up, maybe we really need to work a lot harder, and to smooth the shocking pain, some redistribution of wealth to the working class is needed.
@dang suggest changing the submission to use the article's less clickbaity subtitle: "My journey to a Huawei watch"
Thanks! I chose a title based on a representative phrase from the article, which is what we do if the article's own title/subtitle are too baity or misleading.
if you read that entire article and thought that the salient point was that the author bought a huawei watch, you quite frankly wasted a few minutes of your life! the article was a great reflection on china's increasing share of the global consumer market, and increasing overall brand value; the huawei watch was just a jumping-off point.
From a product standpoint, we're beginning to look at lot more like Europe did to us in the last few decades. The EU couldn't manufacture a cheap consumer item no matter how hard it tried and no matter how much the EU subsidized things. Just too much government/societal bloat. Seems to be the direction we're heading unless we can recapture the "get it done" spirit of old. I don't think we can do that while we're continually focusing on making sure everything is always fair to everyone all the time.
I agree, but the vague title hardly even hints at that. At least the subtitle actually mentions Huawei…
> But a new Apple Watch would cost several hundred dollars, and I can’t justify that. With the discounts, a Huawei watch cost well under two hundred US dollars. And, frankly, it looks better. So I betrayed America. Reader, I bought one.
A more direct way to think about this is that you betrayed yourself by buying things you don't need, regardless of if it came from Apple or Huawei. You could have bought a Casio digital watch that's much cheaper, more robust, more eco friendly, and runs for years on the same battery with no recharging.
> But since the Chinese government already has my OPM file and probably a lot more besides (I worked in the House during Salt Typhoon!), it’s not like I was risking a lot.
Apathy is never a good solution.
I had a watch that was sitting in the closet for a few years (cheap watch, broken strap). It was not only keeping time after several years of neglect, but the time was reasonably accurate. It did not have any high-tech features like time synchronization. It did not even have the benefit of the time being adjusted manually twice a year.
But that's not really the point. For most people a smart watch has as much to do with time keeping as a smartphone has to do with telephony. The devices earned their name due to the form factor rather than the intended use.
>(The entry-level Chery retails in Qatar for about $15,000 USD—try finding a new car of any kind in the United States for $15,000.)
The competition for a $15,000 new car is the US is used cars, which are available in great abundance for under $15,000.
All things being equal I'd rather have a new car for $15000 than a used one.
But all is not equal - the used car will have a lot more features.
Like what? They all have AC and a stereo of some sort. Like WTH else really matters? TBH most of the feature upsells make so little sense to me (floor mats and real spare tires excepted I guess) that I don't get how they're successful.
I like the auto dim mirrors, but not enough to add a grand to my price.
and a lot more shit to break. nice thing about a cheap car is it has manual seat adjustment, an AC and a radio.
My friend just bought a 20 year old volvo and the locking gas cap malfunctioned while we were being shown the vehicle and testing all the buttons out. The dealer just took a screwdriver and popped the lid with a screwdriver - now the gas cap doesn't latch at all.
Nissan Versa with manual transmission
Nissan Versa is like my one and only example of a new car that feels so cheap I'd only ever buy new or used as a last resort. It used to be one of the cars that would help make things like the Kia Soul seem amazing in comparison . (And I saw with my current car being too cheap for cruise control.)
Apples to oranges as safety standards are different. We are for safety, no?
Are you sure that new car meets safety standards?
Buying a used car instead of new is essentially theft from the manufacturers. Won't someone think of these poor helpless mega-corporations?!
No it isn't. If everyone bought new they would have to sell cars for much less money and in turn make less. Most new car buyers can only afford it because of the trade in value, and this falls down the line.
> Chery specializes in making affordable, mass-market cars that look nice. (The entry-level Chery retails in Qatar for about $15,000 USD—try finding a new car of any kind in the United States for $15,000.)
This is because nobody (*EDIT: by which I of course mean relatively few) would buy it. People signal wealth, status, and even personal values by way of their vehicle in the US. Dealership financing departments ask customers how much they can afford per month in payment and work backwards from there to sell them the vehicle that they want at any cost. The average new vehicle price is around $50,000 because people are actively choosing to buy more expensive cars and trucks [1], not because there aren't cheaper ones around, and 96-month car loans are now a thing because of it.
[1] https://www.kbb.com/car-news/average-new-car-price-flirting-...*
> try finding a new car of any kind in the United States for $15,000.)
> This is because nobody would buy it. People signal wealth, status, and even personal values by way of their vehicle in the US.
Speak for yourself. There are a ton of people who probably make a lot less money than you or I, who would purchase it, where transportation is more important than status.
"It's one banana, Michael. What could it cost, $10?"
I don't even own a car but probably would buy one that cheap. The problem is that we're on Hacker News and aren't representative of the general car buying populace. Many people spend more than 50% of their gross salary on cars because it makes them happy. Manufacturers are giving the public what they want and what people want is bigger cars with more amenities, hence the change in price [1].
Also, as somebody else pointed out, if you value transportation more than signaling then you buy used.
> "It's one banana, Michael. What could it cost, $10?"
I didn't buy a new car until I was well into my 20s and have driven multiple vehicles that were worth no more than their scrap value. That line would probably work better on somebody else, that is, somebody that hasn't apprehensively poured K-Seal into their leaking radiator when they had $600 in their checking account.
[1] https://www.newsweek.com/americans-can-no-longer-afford-thei...
I hate dealing with cars and I hate status signalling, and car maintainence, and buying used and buying new are both miserable IMO, and don't have a clear front runner for comfortable low risk purchase that doesn't look like it's way too expensive (anchored by my concept of what cars should cost relative to median income).
My current >13 year old purchased new car has done better than my previous used car. But it's probably not because it was new, so much as because my previous Used car had high mileage and succumbed to the environment. And buying new felt super weird. But now I look at the market and no matter which you buy it seems miserable.
Why buy a basic cheap car when you can get a not very old luxury car for the same price?
Is there a used luxury model that you can highlight a low TCO for? IE < $20k, won't gulp gas, won't need to see the mechanic except for regular oil change type stuff, won't cost arm and a leg if you do need repairs?
Or a $20-$25k used model that will compare favorably to something like a new Corolla?
Can't tell if I'm missing something or not, but I've never seriously thought that some random used BMW would seriously be cheaper to operate than a boring car unless cars were my hobby.
a used lexus. but there's a premium for used lexuses. but they still go on forever with little maintenance i.e just oil change.
e.g https://www.truecar.com/used-cars-for-sale/listing/JTHAA1D2X...
Because it's probably going to be a lot cheaper to fix basic cars than luxury brand cars (part costs, availability of mechanics that work on those cars)
If you didn't care about status signaling you typically skipped the "new" label (which loses you tons of value right at signing) and bought used-whatever-the-rich-people-were-buying-but-upgraded-from. Well that or "4th hand... but still runs!", depending exactly how much you had and how little you cared.
Though that got a bit screwy with the prices during COVID which is when I switched to new myself (well, that and a >10x increase in yearly salary in that time made getting anything at that time feasible). Things seem to be getting back to a more reasonable place at least now, though still a tad high. The typical calculus will probably get a bit screwy again if electric cars keep on pace combined with the US focusing electric on the high end with 30k being the dream price reduction goal.
> If you didn't care about status signaling you typically skipped the "new" label (which loses you tons of value right at signing) and bought used-whatever-the-rich-people-were-buying-but-upgraded-from.
This is describing a specific kind of person and it is not a general rule, at least not for the last 30 years. I would be surprised if it even applied to a plurality of people, but this all comes down to anecdotes anyway. The narrow examples I can think of are vehicles and, to a lesser extent, game systems. But anyone I knew who wanted to know the time would just buy a $20 Casio watch and, in that same vein, would buy whatever product is the equivalent of a $20 Casio watch in that particular product category.
Buying used anything is pretty time consuming (unless you do no research and just pick the first thing you see) and a lot of people want(ed) to save their money by saving their time (time is money as they say) buying a reasonably-priced new product.
For my entire post college life (think financial crisis +) the difference in price between new and used cars has been inconsistent, erratic, and extremely hard to evaluate. While it's true that cars eventually depreciate enough to be cheaper, I have 2012 model year that's probably worth < 20% of what it was new even with reasonable mileage, when I look at used cars less than 5 years old and without a ton of miles, most models that are considered reliable or remotely popular seem to sell above 80% of new model sticker price, and often are marked at or above new sticker at car lots. Choosing between, say a new Coralla vs. a used Camry seems far removed from what I remember in my youth, which is that for model pairings like that maybe your new vs used model overlap would be another mark or maaaybe something like a Yaris, and you'd be like "buying new is for rubes." But today, you have to spend several days of part time work to figure out something like "a new model a, or b, in price range x or a used model c or d with sub n miles in price range z will have similar TCO, let's see what's out there..."
I think there's a reason that that Slate truck seems interesting to some people, and why people think stuff like the Maverick that has gone from a reasonable deal to a questionable one but still remains popular.
That said, I think it's true that most new car buyers are mostly buying expensive cars and that there aren't many cheaper cars despite evidence that they'd sell. So what I'm curious about is that means 5 years from now people will have to sell them at an increased rate of depreciation or they'll just keep them longer.
In the worst case this seems on the verge of cars being driven out of middle class hands (or houses going from two car to one car) if the median income relative to average car price grows more.
Buying used is genuinely a pain in the ass.
"US. Dealership financing departments ask customers how much they can afford per month in payment and work backwards from there to sell them the vehicle that they want at any cost"
That's a trick to make the car look affordable to people with no finance knowledge. I remember having to ask what the apr is multiple times before they would answer.
I'd definitely buy one! Back in around 2007 I went to the Chevy dealer and said "What's the cheapest car you got" and he said you want a Cavalier... I got it with air conditioning and an automatic for around $12k.
It was a great car at a great price, zero problems.
I don't understand why cars have gotten so much more expensive in the last 20 years. There is definitely room at the bottom for entry level vehicles.
I suspect the problem may be the increasingly strict emissions laws that push the OEMs into preferring certain segments at the expense of others. It might be that it doesn't make sense for the OEMs to pursue the low end market, it's not worth the trouble.
This is $17k which isn’t bad for almost ten years of inflation.
https://www.mitsubishicars.com/cars-and-suvs/mirage
On that page, I clicked on the "Build and Price" button. All that page contains is their SUV models.
I then checked the 5 dealers closest to me. At these 5 dealers, there are only a total of 3 base model cars in inventory, all last years' model: 18k, 18k, and 20.6k
The explanation is obviously the chicken tax and fat profit margins on their larger SUVs.