How **** can Win in China?

How about Censorship?

Censorship is another widely spread out excuse for the failure of the Internet giant. Not true. It is part of the reasons, maybe 10%, but not all. There are examples of Google, and Facebook. Yes. They were blocked partially or completely, but that is the only only fatal attack they face. LinkedIn was not banned, but it didn’t grow as fast as people think. eBay was not banned, and majority of the Internet companies were not. Although they survived from the first challenge – whether people can use it – they didn’t survive the sequential challenge that both local and  international Internet companies face: the challenge of a good product, the challenge of a first-class team, the challenge of marketing, and the challenge of competition. Lift the censorship is the first step to success, but not last step.

The management of Internet companies and media tend to put more attention to problems like censorship or other political issues than they actually deserve. It is like that foot is important for a person, but not all. I once broke my ankel and were in wheel chair for 3 months. Everyone noticed that I am so different from everyone else, but only I know that the broken ankel does not affect my life that big as people expect – at least when I use computer, or sleep, or talk with people – these activities occupy majority of my life. Censorship makes situation so different from other places, but I would strongly encourage people to focus on business challenges.

Another similar argument was that Taobao was free but eBay was not. Similarly, that is only one of the many challenges. There are many other free sites but why Taobao dominate eventually? It is just small part of the story.

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