You assume that the government would ever let a foreign company get dominant market share over a domestic one.
China is no where close to a free market, the winners are chosen.
Reading a bit about the Belt and Road Initiative is probably a good primer on some of China's global interests right now.
Google is dominant nearly worldwide. If China is able to get Google to cave and build the censorship machine then what barrier is there to turning the feature ‘on’ for other countries that ask for it? There are plenty of oppressive regimes interested in a censored Google but they don’t have the pull to get Google to build it right now. Once it’s built though why wouldn’t Google’s response just be shrugs “sure why not?”
I think it is indeed a slippery slope and legitimizes China’s plan to influence the internet for the worse.
Remember all of the handwringing about BBM messages being difficult to intercept? Then the crying suddenly went away, and a few months later you heard about police breaking up organizers of riots.
You completely missed the point and failed to address any of the serious ethical problems they raised in the letter. We would be living in a dark dystopia if everyone's biggest priority was penetrating markets.
Tech workers are in high demand and have great salaries. Their livelihoods are not in jeapordy; they have their pick of where to work.
You can't be serious. Don't ever underestimate brand inertia, especially in a "super-patriotic" country like China. If Google had any chance at all, and assuming the Chinese government or Baidu's friends in the government wouldn't interfere with the "free market" in China to hurt Google at every turn, it would still take at least 5-7 years for Google to even get close to Baidu's market share.
Also this assumes this wouldn't catch a fire under Baidu's ass to start innovating and investing more into its search software and server farms.
I still believe it would be all but impossible for Google to beat Baidu in China. I just don't ever see it happening. If it was so easy, why hasn't even happened in Russia, where Google actually had significantly larger market share, had to deal with fewer political games than in China, and its Chrome browser I think was actually the most popular there until recently (or it may still be the most popular there).
If Google can't beat Yandex, it absolutely can't beat Baidu, no matter how much it "complies" with the Chinese governments' rules.
OTOH Chinese consumers are recently obsessed with western products actually. Not with iPhones (you can buy Xiaomi smartphone, laptop, and Bluetooth headset for the price of iPhone), but with clothes, food, and many other goods.
> If Google can't beat Yandex, it absolutely can't beat Baidu
Don't underestimate Yandex.
Google could continue to operate profitably without doing business in China, so what makes your statement true?
China may be the lowest-hanging fruit of the search and ad market, but surely you're not suggesting Google would shy away from a challenge and only go for the easy win? That doesn't sounds like the Google we all know.
People want a messenger app? Let's make one! Oh, it takes time and energy. Let's shut it down. Oh wait, people want a messenger app. Let's make one. Oh, it takes [........]
It's all about returning as much money to investors as possible. Period. Otherwise you suffer the consequences.
Why doesn't Google start a restaurant chain, or start making PCs, or selling servers, or licensing software defined networking stacks to other companies, or monetize many of their other assets? Surely they must if they're supposed to make as much money for their investors as possible?
Why don't they sell search data on individuals to repressive regimes, so people can be hunted down, imprisoned, tortured and executed? Would make some decent coin for investors, I expect, lots of repressive governments would probably pay a pretty penny for it.
How about selling searches emanating from US government IPs to the Kremlin, selling tracking data linked to Google accounts, or otherwise monetizing espionage interests?
The problem with doing these things is that it affects the value of the Google brand, both internally to employees and externally to customers. If you can't hire the best employees or encourage customers to trust your software and services, then long or even short term decline is pretty much assured.
And how about swapping cause and effect? You're positing the tail should wag the dog - that the stock market should control what the company does. How about the stock market chooses to invest in companies that are doing things that it believes will make money? From this perspective, the company is free to do whatever, and investors are free to sell the stock if they don't agree. In truth, there's a mutual dependence here - the company can't just fraudulently give away investors' cash, but likewise, if investors knew what was best for companies, we wouldn't need CEOs or leadership of any kind - we'd just advertise choices to the investors / market and go with whatever pushes up the stock most.
The general legal position today is that the business judgment that directors may exercise is expansive. Management decisions will not be challenged where one can point to any rational link to benefiting the corporation as a whole.
AMZNs stock price isn't driven by current earnings, but it isnt driven by investor magnanimity either. It's all about the promise of future earnings. If revenues flatline or decline, you can expect their stock prices to fall in line with their peers.
They just keep getting picked off one by one.
Isn't companies banding together and agreeing to restrict business in a market a combination in restraint of trade, which is explicitly illegal?
But still, not sure if they would give up the low cost of manufacturing for this. Frankly, the regime makes that possible.
The best way for the world to improve is for all scientific and technology advancements to be freely available.
Any good China does for its people or for other nations? That will just serve to legitimize their totalitarian government and encourage imitations abroad. Ergo it's bad.
In general it's better to state your fundamental premises at the beginning of the argument rather than reveal them midway through
Search engine advertising constitutes close to 85% of Google's revenue. And unlike Project Maven, which was ended due to internal resistance from employees, doing business with the second largest economy in the world isn't an expendable venture.
Curious to see how they move forward. My guess is they will: human outrage never really lasts long, especially when their livelihoods are far from in jeopardy.