It's actually funny how the app ecosystem mirrors the political discourse.
When you need multiple apps to do anything, there's freedom of choice.
When one app does everything, it's authoritarian.
Normally I'm against monopolies, but Apple and Google take an unreasonable cut from their app stores so the Wechat monopoly might be less exploitative if it can make people OS independent, especially when CPC's regulating and watching them closely.
Indeed, and to add to that, I'd argue that a lot of choice is very much superficial here, since Google and Apple control the service pipelines and underlying machinery that the apps use.
This is why it's very difficult to use a phone that doesn't use their platforms in the west. You end up being cut off from most useful stuff.
As always, capitalism provides us with a veneer of choice here.
Apple/Google using their monopoly to extort high cuts would be one of the less bad things for China. The biggest problem would be reliance on Western corporations for core and essential services. India's tech sector is being serviced by Western corporations mostly. WhatsApp is the national messaging app, Google Pay is the most common app for online payments through UPI, online shopping is dominated by Amazon, etc. Russia and China have avoided this through protectionist measures but India has no alternatives in place. There are some indigenous gig economy food/grocery delivery and taxi service apps though.
It's actually funny how the app ecosystem mirrors the political discourse.
When you need multiple apps to do anything, there's freedom of choice. When one app does everything, it's authoritarian.
Normally I'm against monopolies, but Apple and Google take an unreasonable cut from their app stores so the Wechat monopoly might be less exploitative if it can make people OS independent, especially when CPC's regulating and watching them closely.
Indeed, and to add to that, I'd argue that a lot of choice is very much superficial here, since Google and Apple control the service pipelines and underlying machinery that the apps use.
This is why it's very difficult to use a phone that doesn't use their platforms in the west. You end up being cut off from most useful stuff.
As always, capitalism provides us with a veneer of choice here.
Apple/Google using their monopoly to extort high cuts would be one of the less bad things for China. The biggest problem would be reliance on Western corporations for core and essential services. India's tech sector is being serviced by Western corporations mostly. WhatsApp is the national messaging app, Google Pay is the most common app for online payments through UPI, online shopping is dominated by Amazon, etc. Russia and China have avoided this through protectionist measures but India has no alternatives in place. There are some indigenous gig economy food/grocery delivery and taxi service apps though.