You’ll see the impact even more with hardware startups, who don’t have the means to keep a stockpile of products (like a capacitor to production woes).
For example, Hiome builds its products in Chicago, but we get the PCB boards printed in China and are scrambling to adjust now that our boards are indefinitely delayed.
I’m curious to see what the eventual ripple effects are to the industry from this hiatus.
I’d expect anything that is manufactured in China to be in a similar situation.
POs have already extended out significantly (some of our parts have more than doubled). Those estimates are at best guesses, I would be surprised if they don’t continue to slip.
Manufacturing supply chains are at incredibly low levels.
The second reason (slow sales in China) would really only affect things that are there, obviously.
Totally. Regardless of whether its China or some other place on earth, almost complete centralization of manufacturing supply chain from teddy bears to cold rolled steel and everything in the middle; we're gonna have a bad time. Now if that said country offers nothing in return in terms of fairness, flat-out bans foreign business from competing, subsidizing national corporations in return for citizen information, ruled by an authoritarian regime with fascist underpinnings, and has a public health emergency; boy we're headed towards a recession until the rest of the world equips with multiple points of failure in their supply chain. I am sure this small dip will lead to unoptimization of local optima and leads us into a stronger future where there is fair competition, stronger supply chain, and efficient international trade.
I am sorry to bring up political aspects, but I hope it only portrays the objective state of the situation without any prejudicial color.
Anything PC is impacted now. February is always slow and inventory is tight. Quantities of many devices that are typically 10 days to fulfill are getting pushed back to April or May delivery.
I know folks who sent teams out to clear out certain devices at retail to have a stockpile for replacements or new hires as a contingency.
Yes, they are. I don't care whether a ride service is available in one, a dozen or three hundred locations. I care about the best option in my city, and I would bet dollars to donuts that this aligns with the market majority.
A thousand local or regional competitors are just as much an existential threat to Uber as one or two big ones.
Agree, it’s definitely possible (and rather easy) for regional competitors to enter the market. I also live in Austin and when Uber and Lyft left I switched to Fasten and Ride Austin with absolutely no difference to the end user experience. If someone else came along at a significant discount to Uber and Lyft I would switch in a heartbeat. I often converse with drivers about it and they have the exact same approach. Whoever pays the most for them gets their business, whoever charges the least gets the rider business. Ride sharing is basically a commodity right now and anyone who thinks otherwise and invests accordingly is going to get burned. The only thing that is going to change that IMO is autonomous vehicles.
> Ride sharing is basically a commodity right now and anyone who thinks otherwise and invests accordingly is going to get burned. The only thing that is going to change that IMO is autonomous vehicles.
TBH, I think that the autonomous vehicles is just a further illustration of the extent to which it's a commodity. To an approximation, the product is that you got from point A to point B for $dollars in #time. If you can get that sorted out, people will barely even care if the service is provided by JohnnyCab from Total Recall.
It's exactly the same economics as govern airlines, which are famously the last place you put your money if you're trying to turn it into more money. There's some room for differentiation based on quality of service, but it's proportional to the product of the percentage of people who aren't spending their own money and the percentage of companies whose operations departments are on the ball.
You speak truth, but the weird reality that we live in seems to dictate that the first mover advantage in autonomous vehicle world suggests that the people who are able to bring this reality forward will own the space for at least a year or two. It’s an exciting time to be alive and witness this at least.
Obviously we don't ban people for being Chinese. Presumably you mean it's "obvious" that they're a Chinese government agent. If so, your post is illustrating the very dynamic I was writing about. Your intention is positive, to protect the community, but when you express it this way, the effect is to poison the community you mean to protect.
I'm familiar with that account. Their posts, and what private data we have, are completely consistent with who they say they are: a former Google employee and startup founder who has lived in both China and the U.S., has a Kubernetes war story, opinions about Python, Go, PHP, software deployment and so on, and who is frustrated by comments about China here because they feel many commenters don't know what they're talking about. It's natural that someone who lived many years in both countries would feel that way. Some of their comments have broken the site guidelines, but that's a separate issue—and who of us wouldn't, having our integrity attacked outright like they have?
This is clearly a case of somebody being singled out for suspicion because they have different views, formed by different experiences, than others here. When users do that, it puts us in toxic territory. Is it ok to accuse people of being government agents, shills, spies, or astroturfing, just because they have a different view on some geopolitical or economic question? Obviously we need to not go there.
It's fine if you're not persuaded—I don't expect that—but please consider the downside of being wrong. What if this person is as innocent as you are, motivated by the same things as you? Can you imagine what it would be like to show up here and see it debated whether you're a spy and a liar? Even a single case of someone being unfairly subjected to that is unacceptable. If the community is to avoid "sinking its teeth into itself without realizing it" (Schopenhauer's memorable phrase) and falling into a poisonous swamp, we need a presumption of innocence. And so we do: the guidelines say Assume good faith. If you stand on the dry ground of that assumption, I see no path that gets you to that user being a bad-faith actor any more than you or I are.
I feel bad about holding up an individual user to some sort of public trial like this (another reason why the guidelines ask people to email concerns to us rather than posting them here)—can you imagine what that must feel like? But since the issue is the integrity of the community and its moderation I feel like I'd better say something.
Thank you for the well thought out response, in that case I am happy to concede I was wrong. Let my post serve as an example of what you were pointing out.
That person is 100% not a shill. I think your comment is a prime example of what dang meant by
> Much more common, however—by far the typical case—is people suspecting someone else of posting in bad faith merely because that other person's view is so far from their own that they can't conceive of anyone having it for legit reasons.
> And now I'm into the 2nd year of my startup. As contrary to popular belief, the Chinese are true entrepreneurs and the society is generally very supportive for changes. And government's stimulus is insane. For example, my company got six million yuan (almost $1 million) fund from the municipal government when it's just established, with almost no requirement and absolutely no string attached. Free money and that's all. Probably the best place in the world to start a company and I'm greatly thankful.
By that measure, founders of YC companies are shills when they comment on their experience with the application process. Being happy about their loose investment requirements is not the same thing as being paid to spread misinformation.
Ah, now I understand the "four year hiatus". And the lack of perspective. In another comment I suggested she move to Sacto. I'm thinking instead she should spend a year abroad.
>Simply put, Huawei's products have better quality and companies in the US can't compete with it.
>I'm now typing on a Huawei Matebook 13 and carrying a Huawei Mate 10 phone. Those things have amazing quality and it's a real pity customers can't have them in the States.
You have an interesting post history supporting Huawei for an account only a month old...
This kind of thing is becoming really common lately. Not just Chinese companies doing this -- Qualcomm shills have been relentless whenever there's new press out regarding their legal battle with Apple, for example.
I wonder if it's just part of the "package" when a company buys the services of a marketing or PR company these days. Maybe before it was just a few phone calls to some editors to get some puff pieces in magazines and an ad campaign.
Now it's those things too, but also a massive online wave of comments across the web and social media to push a narrative in a certain direction.
I'm so sick of it. It just makes me want to stop using these portions of the internet completely. It is naive to think that companies aren't putting as much into social media manipulation campaigns as they do into advertising.
Was that quoting from their flagged comment, or from their post history? Because if it's from the flagged comment, they posted exactly the same comment yesterday on another HN post:
my flagged post was about how the OP misinterpreted the chinese phrase (since you asked i include below). thats why I questioned what his point is. in my old post i was also critisizing huaweis early products as cheap knockoff but he seemed not bothered to quote.
reposting here:
> In China, stealing trade secrets is called “打破技术封锁” (breaking the technical blockade).
Wow. This is a blatant lie. Where did you get this piece? The Chinese phrase means developing the technology to a certain level that an embargo no longer works as intended. There are plenty examples in space technologies - US prohibits NASA collaboration with China and there are indigenous innovation breakthrough from within like landing on the far side of the moon.
Thanks for clearing that up - it wasn't clear to me if you were being accused of repeatedly posting exactly the same comment, or just comments supportive of Huawei & China in general.
You're welcome to read all my posts and comments, and they are public. I have been reading hacker news for a few years and only recently wanted to sign up. so what's your point?
So it must be shills to be supportive of China? Have you considered supporting China may be quite a popular opinion among the Chinese people both domestically and overseas?
Most westerners appreciate a balance between supporting one's country of origin in a generic, thoughtful way, and unthinking jinoism[0].
Part of the mental maturity process is being able to see the greater affects of the policies of one's country on the wider world, and advocating for policies which enhance things for the greater world while still being positive for one's own country. That maturity process is naturally short circuited in authoritarian countries like China.
You seem to not have come across this so I'll spell it out.
Authoritarian China controls both the education, media and internet. It can and does fan the flames of ethnonationalism for political purposes.
The propaganda is usually reasonable sounding, but actually incorrect reading of history.
The more nationalist individuals make their own decisions and are encouraged to be themselves propagandists. Especially spreading propaganda towards other ethnically Chinese people but also to the wider world.
The infectiousness and effectiveness of this propaganda is actually quite fascinating to observe.
Everywhere on the internet there are examples of this information warfare.
where did you get this piece of crap? i have lived in china and us, both countries have pros and cons, things that their people should be proud of. its weird that you label my post as nakedly cheerleading
Definitely a weird thing to highlight as a "surprise" but also not quite right, since it should be exactly half... and also that portion of the pie should be a semicircle (around 180 degrees even if it's 48%)... but it's significantly smaller than that somehow?
Net compensation includes bonuses and such. It's not just wages. The 48% figure is the cumulative total of people with net compensation < 30k. So it's not wrong by construction just oddly misleading.
If you look at the SSA data, It also highlights that the mean net compensation is about $48k. And 67.4% of wage earners have net comp below that figure. Which is in line with the graphic.
