Over the past three centuries success at economic development has always gone with an absolute conception of property rights. in China today, however ,your property rights are always conditional on your service to the state and on the power of your friends in the party. Thus American corporations and their American shareholders are going to find serving China’s market a very interesting thing indeed over the next generation:
Ben Thompson: China Blocks Bing; Tencent, China, and Apple;: "The warning signs for Apple are flashing bright red: not only is Apple the most successful hardware company in China (and, relatedly, the most successful software company), the company also runs by far the most profitable service. China is the biggest market for the App Store, and it is fair to wonder how long China will tolerate Apple’s total control of app installation for the iPhone...
...Certainly Apple is doing its best to foreclose that possibility: the company kicked out VPN apps in 2017, and purged an additional 25,000 apps that state media claimed were illegal last fall. Then again, Microsoft did its best to keep Bing in China’s good graces as well: now we know how that turned out. If I were Apple I would pretty nervous about the long-term viability of, at minimum, that 30% share of purchases in the App Store, and potentially the exclusivity of the App Store completely...
#noted
