Background: I've spent the first 25 years of my life in China, and the next 20 in the US. I know my opinion probably won't be popular, just wanna point out a few things missing in the current discussion.
Most of us here on HN are entrepreneurs. We wanna make something useful to the world and make tons of money in return. Just as we should look at what kind of impact our products have on our users' lives, in the discussion of whether Google should return to China, we shouldn't focus on the Chinese government and ignore the 1 billion Chinese people.
If Google launch a new Google.cn:
1. The Chinese government won't benefit much from this. Compared to these Chinese companies, Google will always be an outsider. It will have to work with the government, but won't be eager to do so, and might cause troubles to the government from time to time.
2. The Chinese people will benefit a lot! Without good competition, the dominant search engine Baidui has become such a bad actor over the years. If you are annoyed by Google ads, Baidu is 100 times worse, especially on mobile devices. For many search terms, the first a few pages are all ads. People are really fed up with this. In a recent survey by Sina (http://finance.sina.com.cn/stock/s/2018-08-07/doc-ihhkuskt26...) 72.8% the users surveied wanna use Google if it goes back to China.
If you were a farmer in the North right before the civil war, you probably would still have been willing to sell to the people living in the south that are against slavery, even if Southern government would benefit from tax.
What is the difference between three pages filled with ads and three pages removed from censorship? I would argue the second one is worse, although I imagine Baidu is just a combination of both.
I think part of what you suggesting, is that to change this system, you must be part of the system first, instead of trying to change it from the outside. Instead of sitting outside, moaning about it. They could have actively work on / against from within.
Your opening statement of "make something useful to the world and make tons of money in return" is completely antithetical to all discussion in and around this article. That idea of amoral profit at all costs is exactly the point the employee in the article is refuting.
Point 1 makes no sense, Project Dragonfly demonstrates a willingness to work with the Chinese government in the first place, so this does what for the Chinese people?
And in point 2, your only claim of the provided benefit is less annoying ads? Really? This is not a very convincing argument and reads like standard HN Chinese astroturfing...
Because all the companies operating in China already cooperate with the Chinese government. Google entering or not entering China changes nothing about the control of the Chinese government over its people.
> so this does what for the Chinese people?
Bringing a better search engine back while leaving everything else (like censorship) at its status quo.
Part of it for me is I believe the mountains along the south of China protect one of the Earth’s most sacred cultural geographies, and I think China’s erasure of that is immoral.
If the U.S. were to try to block discussion of mezo-American people and cultures, I would feel the same.
I think the U.S./Mexico border is an equivalent global cultural crime and would not want any company I work for to support its construction.
No one hates China. People rightly point out that the government doesn’t provide rule of law and stands against our values. That we don’t do this consistently with all offenders is because China is the biggest threat right now. Russia has much less clout and power than China, for example.
China has been waging economic war against the US for decades, stealing IP, syphoning off wealth from the American middle class in order to attempt and establish their own. All while throwing people in political prisons, threatening the territorial integrity of their neighbors, putting the whole of Africa in debtor's prison, etc. And it's only just begun.
You are asking with a straight face why the above isn't looked upon in the same way as the actions of Phillipines, Nigeria or Germany? Seriously?
Most of us here on HN are entrepreneurs. We wanna make something useful to the world and make tons of money in return. Just as we should look at what kind of impact our products have on our users' lives, in the discussion of whether Google should return to China, we shouldn't focus on the Chinese government and ignore the 1 billion Chinese people.
If Google launch a new Google.cn:
1. The Chinese government won't benefit much from this. Compared to these Chinese companies, Google will always be an outsider. It will have to work with the government, but won't be eager to do so, and might cause troubles to the government from time to time.
2. The Chinese people will benefit a lot! Without good competition, the dominant search engine Baidui has become such a bad actor over the years. If you are annoyed by Google ads, Baidu is 100 times worse, especially on mobile devices. For many search terms, the first a few pages are all ads. People are really fed up with this. In a recent survey by Sina (http://finance.sina.com.cn/stock/s/2018-08-07/doc-ihhkuskt26...) 72.8% the users surveied wanna use Google if it goes back to China.
If you were a farmer in the North right before the civil war, you probably would still have been willing to sell to the people living in the south that are against slavery, even if Southern government would benefit from tax.