spicy take regarding chinas firewall:
by forcing citizens to use their own countries apps(baidu instead of google, weibo instead of Amazon, wechat instead of like everything), they’ve prevented the export of value/money/data to other countries, and instead kept it for its own citizens.

a lot of countries tried putting up economic walls to safeguard their own companies over the last century.  

it usually made the companies weaker because they weren't exposed to the right stressors, and they struggled to break out globally.

it makes winning the local game easier, but the global game harder

Technowatermelon. Elder Millenial. Building Farcaster. 

nf.td/varun

100%. Countries tend to do this for their most powerful sectors. The US has done this most obviously with its financial sector and capital markets which is why they're so brittle