Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

US Tech Companies Start To Become Copycats of Chinese Peers (foxbusiness.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the internationa-innovation dept.

hackingbear quotes Dow Jones Newswire: Chinese technology companies have long had a reputation of being copycats of Western peers, but U.S. companies have recently begun to return the favor, said a partner at prominent venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz... China's internet titans such as Tencent Holdings Ltd. are influencing U.S. startups and majors alike, and many Chinese models are being replicated in the U.S., said Connie Chan, a partner at the Silicon Valley venture firm. LimeBike, a startup at San Mateo, Calif., adapted China's dockless bike-sharing model, first rolled out by Beijing-based Ofo Inc. and Beijing Mobike Technology Co., for U.S. consumers... Also, Apple Inc. recently added payment services to its iMessage chat service, taking a page from Tencent's playbook. "I love this reversal of what 'China copycat' can mean," she said. "It no longer just means a Chinese company copying the States, it can mean a U.S. company copying China."

46 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. Wow, two examples! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And they're both common sense ideas with zero evidence that they were copied from the Chinese!

    1. Re:Wow, two examples! by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 2

      In fact Apple almost certainly added that feature FOR the Chinese market. It remains to be seen if it will be used in the US, where everyone is set up to accept payment via credit cards and there's a significant amount of money behind them.

    2. Re:Wow, two examples! by ilguido · · Score: 1

      And they're both common sense ideas

      Like 90% of all the IP "thefts". 99.9% when speaking about software patents.

    3. Re:Wow, two examples! by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      What about paper and gunpowder? ;)

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    4. Re:Wow, two examples! by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      And having the corners on your device rounded isn't a common sense idea? Yet Apple was able to patent that and claim anyone who added it was copying them.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    5. Re: Wow, two examples! by Reaperducer · · Score: 1

      They're called "peds" and have been around in America since at least the 1960's, when I first saw them.

      Don't let your very limited life experience define your world.

      --
      -- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."
    6. Re:Wow, two examples! by dcw3 · · Score: 1

      What about in our lifetime?

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
  2. Who copied who? by Dan+East · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Also, Apple Inc. recently added payment services to its iMessage chat service, taking a page from Tencent's playbook.

    A number of messaging services in the US have had this feature for many years. Facebook's Messenger is one example. If you want to get pedantic, a more accurate headline is "Apple copies Facebook Messenger's payment feature".

    Having a software feature in common, or offering a similar kind of rental service, is nothing like the kind of copying that the Chinese government run industries have been doing, which is more akin to reverse engineering a physical product in order to manufacture it themselves.

    --
    Better known as 318230.
    1. Re: Who copied who? by fubarrr · · Score: 1

      Learn from Silicon Valley in huge fail

    2. Re:Who copied who? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      WeChat pay predates Facebook Messenger's payment system, and is much more advanced. It's actually more like PayPal, but if your PayPal account was also your instant messenger account and your social media account...

      I've noticed that some western products are starting to copy cost reduction features that Chinese companies first started using too. One example would be running everything from USB power. As well as the connectors being cheap it means they can get a standard PSU at extremely low cost, or just omit the PSU entirely because people likely already have a dozen of the things.

      In any case, a lot of former US brands are Chinese now. For example, Skil, makers of the SKILSAW that "build America", is Chinese owned. If you look carefully at their current products, there are clear signs of them adopting some Chinese cost reduction innovations in areas where it isn't likely to affect longevity or performance. This video (NSFW language!) shows it in detail: https://youtu.be/G6fJ8xFDYSM

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    3. Re:Who copied who? by ranton · · Score: 1

      In the best case scenario the future will consist of both Asia copying the West and the West copying Asia. The proliferation of good ideas is not a bad thing. This would mean there are a few billion more people to draw the entrepreneurs of the future from. That will be a great thing for human progress.

      Another great byproduct will be the need for China to increase its respect for the intellectual property of the West. As they create IP of their own they will want it equally respected abroad. Yet another win for the world.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    4. Re:Who copied who? by stealth_finger · · Score: 1

      WeChat pay predates Facebook Messenger's payment system, and is much more advanced. It's actually more like PayPal, but if your PayPal account was also your instant messenger account and your social media account...

      I don't know about anyone else but that sounds like a really bad idea.

      --
      Wanna buy a shirt?
      https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
    5. Re:Who copied who? by pr0fessor · · Score: 1

      I don't know about reverse engineering anything, all the electronics in my house are either made china or have parts that were made in china even the stuff from American companies. When I think reverse engineering I think of someone starting with no knowledge of how the device works, not someone that already manufactures a large chunk of the parts deciding to assembly their own version of the end product.

    6. Re:Who copied who? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      It's definitely a terrible idea, but it was their original terrible idea :-)

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    7. Re:Who copied who? by hackingbear · · Score: 2

      Facebook Messenger has long been known as a copycat of the Chinese messengers, especially the payment features.

      https://walkthechat.com/facebo...

    8. Re:Who copied who? by Cyberax · · Score: 1

      The correct spelling is "amerikanskih". Note the correct ending for the genitive case and lower case (nationalities or languages are lower case in Russian).

  3. 1965 Holland made "dockless bike sharing" known by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Go look up witte fietsen aka "white bikes".

    Good lord - what's with all the shameless propaganda lately on Slashdot trying to sell the ideas that India and China are great and wonderful innovators in technology, finance or industry?

    1. Re:1965 Holland made "dockless bike sharing" known by slashdice · · Score: 2

      ChiComs have been secretly funding pro-Chinese propoganda in the US, starting a few years ago. Things like Chinese classes at public (and private) schools, pro-China festivals (Chinese New Year), and even journalism. I guess they're funding Slashdot because it's a copy-cat of reddit, but without the democracy :)

      --
      Copyright (c) 1990 - 2014 Dice. All rights reserved. Use of this comment is subject to certain Terms and Conditions.
    2. Re:1965 Holland made "dockless bike sharing" known by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      what's with all the shameless propaganda lately on Slashdot trying to sell the ideas that India and China are great and wonderful innovators in technology, finance or industry?

      It's more like trying to counter the propaganda that China and India are full of uneducated village peasants whose only talent is stealing western ideas. I think it reached a low point with that story claiming that most of them couldn't write code that compiled.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    3. Re:1965 Holland made "dockless bike sharing" known by hackingbear · · Score: 1

      +1 if I have mod point

    4. Re:1965 Holland made "dockless bike sharing" known by Reaperducer · · Score: 1

      It's because /. was outsourced to .in a while ago. You can see it occasionally in the grammar used in the headlines and descriptions. Occasionally, catastrophically.

      --
      -- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."
    5. Re:1965 Holland made "dockless bike sharing" known by dcw3 · · Score: 1

      I guess they're funding Slashdot because it's a copy-cat of reddit, but without the democracy

      I'm hoping this was humor or sarcasm since Reddit started in 2005, eight years after Slashdot.

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
    6. Re:1965 Holland made "dockless bike sharing" known by dcw3 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, yeah. Tell me, what happened with China during the Korean War? What happened with China and Taiwan? What happened with China and Tibet? What's China doing building up fake islands to claim territory that's not recognized by any other country? I could go on and on, but you're clearly an anonymous Chinese troll, so why bother?

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
  4. Who copied who? by Nocturrne · · Score: 1

    The Chinese copied bike sharing and mobile payments, but first made sure all foreign firms offering similar services were blocked in China. And by the way, the bike sharing is a massive investment scam that is so far a total failure (I live in Shenzhen). If you want to learn from China, learn from their mistakes.

  5. Prepare for bike-ageddon by fubarrr · · Score: 1

    >LimeBike, a startup at San Mateo, Calif., adapted
    >China's dockless bike-sharing model, first rolled
    >out by Beijing-based Ofo Inc. and Beijing Mobike
    >Technology Co., for U.S. consumers...

    Prepare for broken bikes to blot out the skies Californians

  6. What? by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    LimeBike, a startup at San Mateo, Calif., adapted China's dockless bike-sharing model, first rolled out by Beijing-based Ofo Inc. and Beijing Mobike Technology Co., for U.S. consumers...

    I, for one, have never docked a bike. If this is what passes for Chinese innovation, then we can safely say they still have no idea how to innovate since those heady days of two fucking millennia ago when they were actually doing new stuff. Last time something like this came up I went to wikipedia to look at a list of Chinese inventions and guess what? Half of them are outright bullshit, and the other half are fucking old.

    China has a culture of hammering down protruding nails that retards creativity. What laid the groundwork for America to become an industrial power was its cottage industry. We knew how to make things, because nobody would stop you from doing it. We had a real can-do attitude, and we did. There's a lot more to the story, but it rapidly gets ultrapolitical and I've had that argument already. You can't do anything big in China without the blessing of the government. Of course, that's fairly true everywhere, but it's extra-true there.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    1. Re:What? by The+Evil+Atheist · · Score: 1

      If their dockless model does not pass as innovation to you, then why did an American startup copy it?

      --
      Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
    2. Re:What? by dcw3 · · Score: 1

      I don't often agree (like almost never) with drinkypoo, but this is spot on. Entrepreneurship is down in the US, and it's getting worse because of taxes and overregulation. I've had several family and friends who've owned small businesses, and remember my dad saying that he couldn't have afforded to start his company in the regulatory environment of the early-2000s...much of it Michigan state rules. I'm not anti-regulation, by a longshot, but I'd argue that a lot of it is bureaucratic nonsense.

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
    3. Re:What? by liquid_schwartz · · Score: 1

      I don't often agree (like almost never) with drinkypoo, but this is spot on. Entrepreneurship is down in the US, and it's getting worse because of taxes and overregulation. I've had several family and friends who've owned small businesses, and remember my dad saying that he couldn't have afforded to start his company in the regulatory environment of the early-2000s...much of it Michigan state rules. I'm not anti-regulation, by a longshot, but I'd argue that a lot of it is bureaucratic nonsense.

      I would add to this that most innovation comes from smaller companies. While GE and the like pay no taxes thanks to loopholes and special privileges small and medium businesses pay through the nose. When we hear about corporate taxes being too high it's easy to think of GE or some other multi-national that scams the public by paying nothing and think taxes should be higher. However the other side of the story is that the smaller companies that actually do new stuff often get snuffed out due to high taxes and regulations. Dropping the current tax structure in favor of something new that puts smaller companies as well as multi-nationals on similar footing really should be a priority.

  7. Bike sharing? Like US shipyards in WWII? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Umm, bike sharing isn't exactly a new idea...

    Let me guess? These US companies also copied the wheel from the Chinese? (Hey, if we're going to go back in time, let's go BACK!!)

    1. Re:Bike sharing? Like US shipyards in WWII? by dcw3 · · Score: 1

      Sure, let's. Next?
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
  8. This was expected by houghi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Just after WWII Japan made things cheap and they where made fun of that they kopied everything, but made lousy quality.

    It is almost the same. Th difference is that the reason things are made so bad is because we, as customers want it cheap,

    They are able to make higher quality. They already do and don't you think theat a few of the almost 1.4 billion people in China are able to come up with ideas on how to do new things?

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    1. Re:This was expected by sinij · · Score: 2

      It is easy to create high-quality product if cost is not constrained - just over-over engineer everything. It is making high-quality cheap goods that is difficult.

      For example, making a cheap car is easy. Making a cheap car that is safe, clean, and reliable is challenging for even large manufacturers. This is why making a car like Bolt at $35K is much harder than making Tesla S at $100K.

    2. Re:This was expected by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I've been working in China for almost 7 years. The comparison between China and Japan is a bad one except for the starting with cheap knockoffs.

      Japan has an ingrained culture of craftsmanship, as does Germany and (believe it or not) the USA. It was natural for them to shift rapidly to high quality products.
      China does not have this culture. It was discouraged by dynastic rule and killed off by communist rule. There are exceptions, but the vast majority of engineers, managers, vendors, etc practice "chabuduo" or "good enough." It's a struggle to get them to admit flawed products are not ok. It's also a struggle to get them to not copy a competitor's product.

      The hope has been this would change. Unfortunately, no. So we are expanding R&D and manufacturing into the USA to get the quality and innovation we want (and save money doing it). The kicker: I work for a Chinese company.

    3. Re: This was expected by pr0fessor · · Score: 1

      Many many products are made cheap in a deceptive nature masquerading under marketing salesmanship of a high quality design, material, and production process.

      You get what you pay for doesn't mean what it used to. Shoes are probably the best example, the most popular and expensive are little more than junk more of a status symbol than an actual product. I had a pare of work boots that I wore for almost ten years and only had to replace them when I spilled some chemical on them that messed up the leather you aren't getting a name brand pair of basketball shoes that last like that.

    4. Re:This was expected by hey! · · Score: 2

      They already do and don't you think that a few of the almost 1.4 billion people in China are able to come up with ideas on how to do new things?

      This is an extremely important point to remember: population may not always be equivalent to total brainpower, but it certainly helps when it comes finding genius. Consider: the current US population of 341 million represents only 4.5 % of the world's 7.5 billion people. Even if we have more than our share of genius, most of the genius in the world comes from somewhere else.

      Sometimes I think the Moon landing wasn't such a good thing for the US. While the rest of the world looked back at that blue marble in the black expanse and was humbled, the US was swallowing a dose of ego validation that would choke a politician. But Apollo really ought to tell us a different story, not of American winning solely because of native genius, but because its native genius working with immigrants like Werner von Braun on the largest public works program ever.

      And it's not just space; from the 30s to the 70s many of the best minds in the world poured into the US. John von Neumann, who conceived of the basic design which underlies nearly all modern computers, was born in Hungary. He came to the US because of a job offer and because America was safe for Jews and intellectuals. Same for Einstein. When I was a student at MIT back in the early 80s many of our most important professors were WW2 refugees.

      That infusion of European intellect helped fuel America's rise to global scientific dominance after the 1930s. Of the two dozen Physics Nobel laureates in the 40s-60s, nearly half were immigrants or children of immigrants; of the remaining dozen, half won for work performed with immigrant scientists.

      US science and tech dominance is highly artificial; the product of jobs for intellectuals, tolerance for unpopular groups, openness to immigrants and refugees, and massive investments in research and education. And on that rests our economic and military dominance. Take that away, and we're just 5% of the world's population.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    5. Re:This was expected by dcw3 · · Score: 1

      Yup, Japan, Germany, Korea, Singapore...China's just next on the list, and as their standard of living increases, they'll price themselves out against cheaper competition from some third world country. But, I'd disagree with your reasoning on why things were so poorly maid. Having lived in Korea (80s & 90s), I witnessed firsthand their attitude about doing things just good enough to get paid, and it didn't matter if you were willing to pay more for quality. You can see that in the evolution of Hyundai when it first came to the US. The cars were pure crap, and so they fixed enough to keep buyers buying, but did nothing about vehicle safety.

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
    6. Re:This was expected by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      That's the opposite of my experience working with Chinese engineers and managers. They are constantly trying to improve their products and services. For example, I've been getting PCBs made and populated in China for over a decade, ranging from simple through hole stuff to eight layer super dense designs. Not only has quality consistently improved while prices have consistently fallen, every time I have had an issue they have rectified it and made sure it doesn't happen in future.

      A few years ago they started offering us modules. Their own designs, taking parts, building up all the support hardware required to make them work and offering them. Initially the quality of English in some of the datasheets and firmware wasn't great, but they sorted that out and now get everything professionally translated. We could design those modules ourselves, but there is no point because they already did all the hardware work designing and testing and certifying them.

      Occasionally I get salesmen from local companies come in. They give me the same line you do, it's all cheap knock-offs, low quality, don't risk your reputation on them etc. The reality is that the locally built stuff is just as bad, we have had radio modules where the tuning drifts due to incorrect oscillator circuit layout and supposedly top-notch German batteries that could barely retain 80% charge after 50 cycles. We have had some great stuff too, don't get me wrong, but they are on average no better than the Chinese. And when the Chinese fuck up they put it right and send up replacement boards, where as the jokers around here just try to spread the blame around and avoid any expense.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    7. Re: This was expected by dcw3 · · Score: 1

      I agree with much of your post, but the example of basketball shoes is probably not a good comparison. Athletic shoes typically get a lot more wear and tear. The advice on running shoes is normally to replace them after ~500 miles...mine are usually repurposed into yardwork shoes.

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
    8. Re: This was expected by pr0fessor · · Score: 1

      There are shoes and boots on the market that are made from quality materials, triple stitched, and after 2 or 3 years you can have the boots re-souled but you won't find them at Hibbets or any other trendy sporting goods store.

  9. If true, it'll help both sides by DeplorableCodeMonkey · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The Chinese are starting to have real skin in the game, and so they're now in the position we were in in the 19th century. You can continue to play the pirate on a lot of IP issues or you can have other industrial states recognize your IP. You can't have both. If the US hadn't changed, the British and Germans would have repaid us by having government staff engineers regularly bulk shipping American patent applications back to London and Berlin, and we'd have been poorer for it.

    1. Re:If true, it'll help both sides by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Maybe it's possible to be profitable and innovative without the kind of crazy IP laws that the US has. Maybe there is another way.

      The company I work for developed a really, really cool new technology last year. We tried to file a patent but unfortunately another company in another part of the world (not China) developed something similar around the same time. It's a shame but hardly means we can't profit from our innovation, as even if our competitors immediately start to copy it they are a long way behind us in development and it's not trivial to get it working properly.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    2. Re:If true, it'll help both sides by sl3xd · · Score: 1

      Maybe it's possible to be profitable and innovative without the kind of crazy IP laws that the US has. Maybe there is another way.

      Maybe, but the US's IP laws aren't that dissimilar from those found in the entire Western world, and some of the more ridiculous ones originated outside the US, and were imported to the US as part of various IP treaties.

      At first, widespread "piracy" of films & books was allowed (and if not legal, at least not prosecuted) in the USA -- the films of Georges Méliès being a great example.

      Then, as Hollywood started producing more films than overseas, suddenly foreign piracy started to matter... and treaties were made that have reciprocal IP laws.

      --
      -- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
  10. Re:You sound like Pavel Chekov by stealth_finger · · Score: 1
    Well they cant have researched very hard then

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    Programs in China - As of 2017, numerous cities across China have one or more competing "dockless" bike-sharing programs...

    European programs - In 1967, the group Provo painted 50 bicycles white and left them in downtown Amsterdam to be freely used...

    So Europe have been at it in one form or another for 50 years but yeah, Chinese innovation.

    --
    Wanna buy a shirt?
    https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
  11. DJI drones are a better example by Cyberax · · Score: 4, Informative

    DJI is a much better example. They pretty much invented the whole "consumer drone" niche and now are the dominant player there. All completely from scratch.

  12. Re: 1965 Holland made "dockless bike sharing" know by dcw3 · · Score: 1

    Cashless can come at a price (no pun intended).
    http://www.businessinsider.in/...

    --
    Just another day in Paradise