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

yea but China has a billion people
doesn’t need to break out globally it already is by sheer numbers

also counter point: companies that are weaker but still in existence > companies that have been outright killed by googles superior tech

that's not really a counter point, thats just a different goal. if youre trying to maximize number of companies alive locally, sure that works.

but it does mean that youre far less likely to be home to the next google.