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

second counter: some companies / products are just better. ex: baidu maps is outright better than google or Apple maps
- more accurate speed + distance measurements
- will tell you if stoplights ahead of you are green or red and for how long
- will tell you when there are speed cameras so you slow down
- etc

this isn't a counter to anything i said. i never claimed it would lead to 100% worse products in every case 😄