GoPro is a US company designed in U.S. with manufacturing in Thailand, China, and Mexico.
Insta360 is a Chinese company designed in Shenzhen and built there, too.
People think this doesn’t matter, but GoPros are used all over in aerospace. If we replaced the brand with Insta360, that puts a big attack vector all over the place.
A similar pattern happened with drones with DJI, intentionally killing all non-Chinese drone brands. And with BambuLabs (founded by ex-DJI) with 3D printers (the only good non-Chinese printer that doesn’t cost 10-100x as much is Prusa, and they’re facing extremely strong headwinds).
Legitimately better Chinese products (incredible engineering) that have massive industrial policy support, probably industrial espionage support (as in the case of DJI for certain), massive influencer marketing campaigns, and near zero cost of capital. When China wants to deindustrialize non-Chinese industries for strategic and/or natsec reasons, they are incredibly good at it. (And note it’s not US-only, China targets basically ANY brand that isn’t Chinese. China absolutely does this to Europe as well… and you can see them doing it in real-time with automotive.)
The only surprising thing to me is how people just act like it’s not happening. I guess for people who don’t have any experience working on federal government adjacent aerospace stuff, the idea of natsec considerations for IT hardware seems entirely abstract, but it’s incredibly real if you do.
If your country’s industrial and defense policy relies on individual consumers making choices that are worse for them on almost all metrics, it’s time to think about on worse payroll your politicians are.
Absolutely true. But China’s industrial dominance is also the government immiserating its people, just in a different way. Domestic consumption in China is famously low, work culture is famously bad (996,etc). And this is because of what their government, not the people of China, have chosen to do.
>But China’s industrial dominance is also the government immiserating its people
Didn't they bring hundreds of millions out of poverty, and built amazing cities and facilities in the past 30 years?
>Domestic consumption in China is famously low
Compared to what, the US? Compared to China is at a historical high, isn't it? And they're doing quite well even compared to like 70% of the world and rising.
> Didn't they bring hundreds of millions out of poverty, and built amazing cities and facilities in the past 30 years?
A lot of that was the result of stopping doing the damage they had done in previous five decades that resulted in such a high proportion of their population living in poverty.
There was a real human cost to how China industrialized that isn’t “muh freedoms”.
China overproduced STEM grads so that their industries could hire them for pennies on the dollar. They had to withstand insane competition starting in elementary school, only to end up unemployed or doordashing.
This isn’t a PRC specific thing either, TSMC is infamous for having PhDs doing night shift lab tech work for pennies (comparatively).
> This isn’t a PRC specific thing either, TSMC is infamous for having PhDs doing night shift lab tech work for pennies (comparatively).
Engineers from Taiwan go to mainland China these days to earn more money. Taiwan was pretty brutal with personal sacrifice in its development as much or if more than the mainland. We could say similar about Korea, Japan, and Singapore as well. This is why Asia seems to be taking over the world now, but the people are about as happy as you’d expect.
In general, I do think the East Asian nations have over-prioritized work for export and industrial policy at the expense of the well-being of their citizens.
It feels to me more like, East Asian nations tend to have robust domestic sets of expectations that tend to be more stringent, reinforced by geological and cultural barriers, and comparatively lower international castes. Anyone born in EA have no choice but to constantly beat the average and to make contributions to the street cred jar for the nation. And that produce such things as TSMC chips and DJI drones and 7-11 egg salad sandwiches.
That simplistic characterization is still essentially "China-bad." The CCP is the same government responsible for lifting historically unprecedented numbers of people out of abject poverty. Does it make up for other human rights violations? No. But "CCP bad" flattens a complex and powerful political organization into a fairy tale boogeyman.
If that's the "worst part" about them, reacting like that to sedition plans, it sounds quite tame.
It's not like people elsewhere, cough, are not arrested for protesting against the bombing in Palestine or against ICE. Or, on the other side of the pond (and on the other side of the political spectrum), for tweeting against illegal immigration to their country. Or in Germany for merely calling the chancellor an idiot.
A lot of us have very little love for authoritarian regimes.
At the same time, all through out my life I have seen folks in the US us their fantasies CCP as reason to accept a government that they feel is the gold standard for freeedom.
I submit to you that what you're hearing are folks who are even more concerned with not being oppressed than you are telling you that it's not that great here for those of us on, say, the anarchist left or among the black radical tradition or whatever.
If your history begins at the fall of the berlin wall and you are happy about the ecological destruction being directly created by the US and the carcerial state it represents then of course you're going to read things the way you do.
But the reality is that most of us are just tired of hearing how fucking free the US is when they just sentenced 19 of our people in Texas to what are effectively life sentences for participating in a protest that went sideways when one participant decided he didn't want to see the state summarily execute a kid for vandalism.
"A lot of us have very little love for authoritarian regimes."
That is quite odd because the CCP is a very authoritarian regime.
Your words have very little relation to reality
You are outraged by the 19 people sentenced in Texas and SO AM I but this kind of political prosecution is unusual in the US but ABSOLUTELY ROUTINE in China.
> lifting historically unprecedented numbers of people out of abject poverty.
Basically true, but not much more than that for most Chinese. The urban modern success story presented to the world is a surprisingly small segment of a notably larger population and even for many in that smaller more fortunate segment the gravy days are long ago and no sign of returning yet.
And chinese don't have full freedom of movement. China uses a system called called hukou which binds a persons rights and benefits to their birthplace. This has created a population of 350 million rural migrants who live in cities but still have a rural hukou and are treated like second class citizens in their own country.
China is a communists based country. Everything is organized and for everything there is a plan. Unlike America where it's free for all. We probably would die from unhappiness in China. But it works for them and they are pretty successful in it.
At this point you're just openly shilling for the CCP. The CCP killed millions of people through incompetence, and then they had the brilliant idea of copying the exact development model of the Asian Tigers. It's their previous incompetence that's the reason that they haven't already caught up with South Korea.
Millions? Please. CCP as it's now was created after reforms by Deng. Most people died due to Mao. CCP back then was only Mao loyalists. CCP endorsed Mao only to gain public legitimacy as the ruling party, since back then China was still a poor country prone to revolts and extremist ideas.
> The CCP is the same government responsible for lifting historically unprecedented numbers of people out of abject poverty.
The CCP also put most of those people into such abject poverty from the 50s onwards. They give up on communism and thereby reversed the problems caused by communism like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward
For bringing people out of poverty, they had laminated placards attached to the doors of people who were poor, and the name of the government official who was responsible for lifting that family out of poverty, and if that government official failed at it, they wouldn't advance in their career.
China is not Iron Curtain countries dominated by the USSR. to compare China to Poland has no merit.
China has built high speed rail, a quality universal health care system, and huge tech and mfg sectors. It most certainly is orders of magnitude above East Germany, and not even the same type of socialism.
There are good things about the West and good things about China, it’s not as simple as “our side good”.
Are you serious? Who is killing thousands abroad and playing corrupt mobster mister policeman in the entire world?
Or course China is supporting Russia. It's geopolitics. The west needs enlargement of their influence in Ukraine. Russia doesn't like this. A failing Russia means China is next. Hard to understand? And China does have universal affordable healthcare.
Maybe, just maybe you should visit one of the large cities in China. You will be surprised how far ahead they are on so many areas. Infrastructure, cultural, government structures, schools, hospitals and more.
>The west needs enlargement of their influence in Ukraine
Okay so you have swallowed the Russia and China propaganda fully. Yes, China has better living conditions now than 20 years ago.
Ukraine is its own country since 1991 and on their own want to move closer to the west, NATO and EU.
Russia invaded Ukraine as Putin is the one who want "enlargement of their influence"
If you think above, how can you blame me in the west for opposing Russia and China? I live in Sweden, we have Kaliningrad with nukes right across us. We had Soviet submarines in our waters in the 80s.
A fallen Ukraine means Russia and Putin and by extension China will invade the Baltics or Poland next. Hard to understand?
Ukraine is not an independent country. The entire culture is practically similar to the Russian one. Yes I have lived in Ukraine (Melitopol) for many years. This whole conflict is 100% caused by the west that tries to put a wig between the two nations. By bribing and buying up assets in Ukraine. Starting from around 2012 when western institutions installing puppets in various places. Government and commercial.
Don't tell me this is somekind of crap conspiracy. We all know that the west performed these actions many times before.
The west is not clean in this war. 100% responsible for this war, killings and destruction .
You are spouting Russian propaganda 100% how it's all the wests fault. Putin and Russia is the one 100% responsible.
Cannot belive I read this on Hn but sadly more and more anti western, pro russia and pro palestine crap is here.
Many eastern europeans who had good life in soviet block have nostalgia, however, Ukraine fights with all it power to prevent returning back to soviet block, because majority have very unpleasant memories of soviet times and dozens of millions murdered by soviets.
Ukraine broke out of Russian Empire and then conquered back by Red army, then conquered Republics of Ukraine and Belarus together with Russian Federation formed USSR.
So, yes, Ukrainian communists were with those soviets, who murdered other Ukrainians (and other enslaved nations), and then their siblings have nostalgia about «good times».
That is not a good analogy. Scotland voluntarily formed a union with the rest of the UK and played a disproportionate role in colonialism. Ireland would be a better one.
The weakness in the GP's argument is that Russia is not the Soviet Union, nor is it communist.
Yes, their system has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, but government policy is now making Chinese consumers poorer than they otherwise would be in order to support domestic industry. It seem’s to be for geo-strategic reasons rather than in the interests of the Chinese people, it’s also probably unsustainable.
WOW the classic yes...but..., where's these statement coming from? I'm Chinese and I don't get the point here at all, you guys seem living in vacuum with biased news, and know much much better than we people living here, that's really confusing everytime I see/read comments lie this.
China now is open freely for almost everyone, come and see by yourslef, if you not living poverty.
The world itslef does not work the propaganda way whether you dislike or hate the gov for whatever reason.
And yes you can criticize the gov as you like with the news you read otr the party you pro with, but never assume how the people feel and belives if you are not the people, and if you do then that's the same mindset as Trump or any other war-bringing president the US had, and you know what they did and still doing.
> government policy is now making Chinese consumers poorer than they otherwise would be
Right, that sort of thing never happens over here. We don't give the rich tax breaks while robbing the middle class (and saddling it with mountains of debt that will be coming due in their future), we don't print money hand over fist to fund idiotic wars and other vanity projects, and we don't do everything in our power to prevent workers from organizing for higher wages and better working conditions.
Congress and the executive is hard at work to make the American consumer richer than they otherwise would be. Everything they do is with that goal solely in their minds. It's all they live for, not for making their backers and friends richer and more untouchable.
> Assertion that China has brought incredible prosperity to its people.
> Complaint that actually, China's economic policies that brought that prosperity are... Structurally robbing its working class.
> Observation that America, which, presumably, is the model for the best, most evolved, and un-improvable structure for its economy is also structurally robbing its working class, with no roadmap for course-correction from it. (And it's doing it for purposes that are not exactly developing the nation!)
> "That's Whataboutism!"
The complaint in #2 is only relevant as a relative comparison. China's economics structurally rob its working class? Okay, let's all agree that's the case - but rob it compared to what? The unchecked late-stage corporatism that we're practicing? The excesses of the industrial revolution in past centuries? It's bad compared to what, exactly? Some idealized strawman utopia, where no economic planning or monetary policy or deficit spending or consolidation of economic power exists? Do you have a roadmap for getting to that one?
The observation in #3 incredibly relevant. If you're not making a relative comparison of China's economy, you need to make an absolute analysis of it... And on an absolute analysis, it has done an incredible job of lifting hundreds of millions of people out of crushing poverty, and into first-world lifestyles, in only a few decades. All the central planning - control of its exchange rates, its monetary and debt and lending policy, it's focus on exports and fundamentals and R&D and education is exactly what has brought that prosperity about.
Meanwhile, the only thing our central planners, here at home are good at figuring out [1] is how to widen the gap between the haves, and the have-nots.
---
[1] I am being a bit too harsh, the Fed does a good job given its mandate.
> but government policy is now making Chinese consumers poorer than they otherwise would be
What country has perfect government policy?
The US has atrocious government policies. Costs of college, cost of healthcare insurance, the reason so many uninsured people use the ER as their primary medical usage, tax policy prioritization of capital reinvestment over wage earnings, caring for the environment over affordable housing, etc are all problematic policy outcomes which make the average person poorer.
Work Culture is famously bad? Look I get 996. The Youth seem like they are either next level burned out or on a treadmill that never ends(due to the 25% youth unemployment, the deflation happening and the extreme overabundance of educated professionals). Both are not good. But the original comment listed stellar companies and products that wipe the floor with American made junk. You don't get that without some extensive hard work. Stealing only takes to so far, you gotta do a lot more on top of that.
Not for nothing, but what do you think is happening in the United States?
American workers have lost income on inflation adjusted terms from 2000-2025. The top 5 companies have a market cap that exceeds the top 30 in 2000, and the concentration of those companies is a single industry vs a diverse collection.
Consolidation of power and capital is reality everywhere. China is not a boogeyman. Go there.
The "idea" of Trump's tariffs (if there ever was one) is to subvert the US constitution which places taxation under the control of congress, not the president.
Tariffs still exist, some were ordered to stop, but there are plenty still being implemented today, and will be in the future; regardless of which party is in power.
There's no real solution other than long-term tariffs. However the President doesn't have the power to do it and Congress doesn't have the willpower. 6-month flash-in-the-pan efforts can only cause chaos.
It's easy to get all high and mighty but there really doesn't have to be complex subterfuge behind "replacing the majority of our technical infrastructure with devices solely created within the borders of our primary military, industrial, and economic rival is not a good idea for security and sovereignty."
We cast aside local manufacturing for cheaper prices in another country and are going to pay the price one way or another.
GoPro was outcompeted on the market. Simple as that.
They were made irrelevant by Insta360 and DJI, both with legitimately better products.
In my view, the only entity to blame for that is GoPro. And I believe that the shortfall was not only in matters of technology. My limited interactions with them painted a picture of an organisation with some super clever people, but paralysed by slow bureaucracy and high risk aversion.
By contrast, Insta360 was much more aggressive and enterprising, while DJI just did what DJI does: build amazing products.
Trying to blame this on some arcane Chinese plot to destroy the West is just a weak attempt to cope with reality: in China today there is simply much higher number of hard working, highly intelligent, highly educated people that are hungry for success then there are in the West.
One thing we forget is that the two great Chinese companies in this space (Insta and DJI) had first to compete against hundreds (thousands?) of other Chinese camera companies before they could come out on the top and compete globally.
They are not a product of a CCP plot. They are a result of a ruthlessly competitive and capable local ecosystem, itself a result of decades of consistent industrial and innovation policy.
Nothing is stopping us in the EU and US to do the same.
It is not as though other countries could not choose do the same.
It seem to me that China choosing to subsidize industry it is not so different than the US choosing to subsidize Roads, Autos and OIL.
In both cases it does seem to work splendidly as intended.
Other than political inertia (or economic reasons far beyond my ability to fathom) there is nothing to stop the US from following suit.
I accept "free market" is a term of art probably from before global trade reality and could be narrowly redefined to mean whatever one wants (or wanted when it was coined) but in my ignorance I see it simply as free to choose actions and responses.
But I am far far away from opinions I am qualified to hold,
think I will shut up now.
I think even the Chicago school would agree that roads should be public
> autos
I absolutely detest US policy with respect to autos so I will not refute this
> oil
Matter of strategic importance that isn’t related to spying or subterfuge. The Nazis probably would have won WWII if they hadn’t run out of diesel. I’m not sure digital cameras come close to this.
But you could imagine a country that invested, in addition to roads, cars, and oil, in public transportation, cities that you can get around on foot, and in renewable energy. Such a country might be better off that the US is now.
Not everyone wants public transport. I never use it. Don’t like being so close to other people. And it is much more expensive where I live. Four friends going for a day trip to the big city is €120+ by train and bus.
Had another look. It’s €265 just for the four train tickets alone, in the lowest class. €375 if you want to travel in comfort class. Two hour journey.
You could imagine that this wasn’t the case, right? Or you could imagine that investing in it for those people who do want it might improve your own life (e.g. by reducing traffic) not to mention society as a whole?
I think the overwhelming and undeniable success and prosperity of China is the biggest concern to the west, the neoliberals consistently predicted their immediate downfall that never came. Except we are all still led by the same neoliberals proven wrong about everything, the contradictions everywhere are driving us all into collective insanity. If we don't manage to purge our media and governments from these vile people the only path forward is collective decline, increased totalitarianism and our repression leading to a war with China. Wars don't always end in the right side winning, and the cold war was won by the wrong side.
So ridiculous. So a bit of subsidy is ok, but no more than the US does? As a country that’s suffered from the US subsidising its own industries, my sympathy is zero.
I would assume that China is your biggest trade partner for both of those categories. Is the US a major trade partner for either of those categories? I find it hard to believe. The US (and most rich countries) have way too much domestic dairy farm capacity. As a result, there is lots of govt subsidies paid to dairy farmers.
This particular complaint is tripple hypocritical. US whole deal is to sell under price until competition dies and only then bring up prices or remove offering.
It winner takes all econony is literally based on destroying the competition as such.
That is (factually) a giant overstatement, and ignores domestic US politics.
It's almost like you believe the US remains interested in promoting free trade.
If it did, it wouldn't be levying illegal and constantly changing import tariffs, in violation of international trade agreements that it has signed up to.
I'm waiting for one of these "no you're wrong" comments to explain why it is that I'm wrong. I get that I didn't provide evidence either, but I'm relating the conventional wisdom on BYD-type cars. The C.W. is often wrong! But, like, you have to say why.
I read up on it, and it's not clear to me that it's actual dumping.
As in "selling below the cost of production".
I would say that China is trying to steer the car makers away from competing locally, as it's going to result in a price war. But that's not quite dumping per se.
"Dumping" is a term of art in international trade.
It's the thing that happens when a foreign exporter sells goods in your country below their production cost (or far below what they're charging domestic customers). It's done to fuck up the foreign markets for those goods, or, in China's case, as a relief valve for malinvestment.
China drastically overfunds EV production. There's a whole weird story where provinces apparently competed to get slices of the EV production business, which resulted in a large number of competing firms, producing far more vehicles than the Chinese domestic market could consume.
This isn't just a US thing. Europe tariffs the heck out of these cars.
Right - your comment was very poorly articulated - and loaded with supposition.
Your claim is that the reason people cannot buy the vehicles ISN'T because they are being dumped BUT because the government SAYS they are being dumped and has therefore actively prevented them from being sold.
The supposition is that it's an accurate claim by the governments - there are reports that the Chinese manufacturers are being restricted by their government and that there has been a period of over production, but how much of that is true and how much is propaganda is very difficult to actually ascertain.
I don't know what you're trying to say here. I don't think there's a serious dispute about whether China is dumping EVs, and the US isn't the only place claiming that.
I don't know how this is supposed to respond to what I just wrote. If an EU country restricted contracts or usage with Google or OpenAI, I wouldn't call them out for doing so. All I'm saying is that it's especially clear why Chinese EVs are impeded from selling in the US.
Interesting that they are “dumping” them in Australia and other countries at prices that are competitive but far above what they cost in China.
Below cost of production my ass.
The only Western car company even competing with them is Tesla, who people love to hate for ideological reasons.
Calling what Chinese companies are doing “dumping” is pure cope for the utter failures of Western companies.
Look at my post history, I’m not pro-China at all, but I am a realist and can see the evidence with my own eyes since we can actually get the vehicles here.
I give it 5 years for Western and Japanese companies to be decimated in this market. Can’t say they don’t deserve it.
I'll take a stab. How about something like not more than 50% greater than OECD average per industry? My point: It seems reasonable that some countries was to specialise in certain areas. For example: Taiwan and (East!) Germany chose to build-out their semiconductor industry starting in the 1980s. It has paid pretty good dividends with a healthy amount of industrial subsidies. I also think the OECD should be raising tariff rates to protect against ridiculous levels of Chinese subsidies.
Appeals to fairness are difficult to accept when the rest of us out here in the world have been hurt by the US imposing tariffs and sanctions on us over the past few decades, and with intense chaotic energy in the last few years.
How do we make a system everyone is to abide by when the US can just rewrite the rules when it suits? Order collapses when a huge country behaves this way.
Basically every "made in USA" consumer product has a DOD contract. The DOD is mandated by law to purchase from US companies, so there is a huge sector of small-to-medium businesses which only exist because there is a guaranteed order coming every quarter for uniforms or boots or other equipment that would likely be 1/3 the price if they were contract-manufactured in China or Vietnam.
Not saying this is uniformly bad, because without the law the number of businesses with the ability to manufacture this stuff would trend toward zero, but it is a form of subsidy.
I wonder if this pattern is true for all militaries in rich countries. I think it sounds like good economic policy. If you want to grow your military, then you need to make sure it is spent domestically. Also, the "finish good" may include lots of parts that were built overseas. Think about a Tomohawk missile: I am sure the microchips are all made overseas. That said, the intellectual property is developed domestically (or with very close allies) and final assembly is done domestically.
US Arms exports bring in around $13 billion a year. The military industrial complex is a domestic jobs program that sells the vast majority of what it makes domestically. The US is clearly not spending a trillion dollars a year subsidizing defense in order to make their products more competitive in other markets.
I'm not sure I agree. In the aircraft industry especially the US has strongly pushed for exports. Overseas programs (TRS2, Avro Arrow) were terminated for political reasons (and replaced with F111 etc). More recently see F35 impact.
That's before we discuss the advantage Boeing has in the commercial market thanks to DoD contracts.
Your link shows that the US exports the same as the next 20 countries added together. That suggests some market dominance.
I also suspect these numbers do not include "military aid" - where weapons and munitions are "given" by the US to Ukraine wherever[1]. (But they may, I don't know.)
I agree though that the primary benefit of this is not "sales". And even if it was these aren't consumer goods. So it's not easily compared to China's approach. I'm not suggesting it's a terribly good subsidy. But it's still a subsidy.
[1] there are a lot of political benefits to be gained by having bases in foreign countries, or by port visits by US ships. Unfortunately most of those benefits have been eroded in the last 2 years. The gutting of USAid (which saved basically nothing), leaving the WHO, the tarrif nonsense, bombing Iran - all have destroyed a benevolent reputation 75 years in the making.
Sure the US benefits by giving arms to Ukraine, or having bases in other countries.
But that has nothing to do with the topic at hand which is market dominance for some industry.
>Boeing DOD contracts
This is probably the closest comparison to what China is doing. But it’s still not the same thing because the US buys equipment from Boeing, they don’t just give them direct subsidies.
The equivalent would be if China awarded Bambu a contract to provide 3d printers to schools.
To the extent that the US pursues policies that help defense companies. They don’t do it in order to help those companies compete in foreign markets. They do it because they want those companies not to go out of business for national security reasons, or because they want those companies to provide domestic jobs.
The US does other shady things, but spending massive amounts to help domestic companies outcompete foreign companies in foreign markets isn’t one of them.
Oh I agree. The US is not doing the same thing as China at all.
China is spending its money developing manufacturing of goods the world wants. It has targeted markets and the govt is spending money in those markets. The markets they have chosen have huge economic and political value.
By contrast the US has chosen to spend its (govt) money on the military. Because, you know, national security.
The US is spending just as much money as China, but focused on different areas. Your complaint (if there is one) is that China chose different markets and didn't "play the game" (as the USSR did) and base their economy on flashy weapons.
Since the collapse of the USSR in 1990 its not clear to me why US spending on military continues to grow. It's not fear of attack; there is no threat to the US itself. It has to be a desire to project power and
influence.
And yet the very limitations of that goal have been exposed in 18 months. The dismantling of USAid (or more accurately the manner of the dismantling) has destroyed 75 years of goodwill. Coupled with punitive tarifs (which are paid for by US consumers) they make the US an unreliable trade partner.
Then the war in Iran showed the very real limitations of the military. To be fair they're currently being lead by incompetence, with no clear goals or strategies. But it reinforces the point that all that military money is wasted when even simple conflicts are lost. And it further drives home the limits of that power projection in unpopular conflicts. A lesson, it would seem, the US wishes to re-learn all the time.
China it seems has different ambitions, and a very different strategy. And I get why you might not like that, because maybe (just maybe) their strategy is the smarter one in the long run.
In terms of PPP, China spends about 60% of what the US does. And looking at the trend over the last 15 years, that number will overtake the US fairly soon.
> Since the collapse of the USSR in 1990 its not clear to me why US spending on military continues to grow. It's not fear of attack; there is no threat to the US itself. It has to be a desire to project power and influence.
The exact same thing is true for China. They can’t be afraid of attack. They have the 3rd largest nuclear arsenal and the 2nd or 3rd most powerful military in the world. Yet they keep growing their military.
> The dismantling of USAid (or more accurately the manner of the dismantling) has destroyed 75 years of goodwill. Coupled with punitive tarifs (which are paid for by US consumers) they make the US an unreliable trade partner.
We have an idiot in the White House. Even when I (very rarely) agree with him on things like tariffs are useful for preventing foreign state sponsored companies from wiping out important domestic industries, he implements them in the most inept way possible.
If a country hands out enormous subsidies but yet isn't leading in anything, then maybe it's time to consider what structural reasons are causing these subsidies to be squandered and whose bottom lines are being padded.
I heard that when some country wants to pay in a different currency than USD for oil, a coup suddenly happens, or a helicopter comes and the president gets kidnapped
It basically means most of the world's currency wealth is held in the USA or backed by the USA. So the answer would be the finance sector - it's subsidized by the rest of the world.
That’s a stretch for the topic at hand. You can say hey the US does this probably morally equivalent thing, but when people are talking about subsidizing domestic companies so they can outcompete foreign companies in foreign markets, this isn’t what they’re talking about.
Ever wondered why everything in the USA contains corn syrup? Because sugar is artificially expensive (roughly double the global price) due to import tariffs that protect US sugar cane farmers.
Successful Chinese industries tend to be subsidized at the level of cities and regions. This creates fierce intra national rivalry that forces rapid evolution and excellence. Electric vehicles are an example.
Anything the federal government pumps money into tends not to do as well.
Or when one country can print endless money while threatening the rest of the world with all kinds of punishment if they stop using it as a reserve currency.
Stop crying already. US subsidizes a boatload of things.
Perhaps a huge tell about national strategy is the fact that the owner has $10s of millions to loan to the company? US economic structure in post WWII era has increasingly focused on return on capital (and value extraction). How can that compete in long term with an economy which prioritizes reinvestment *in industry*?
One would presume that the founder is investing their money into something, probably equities, that is an investment in industry. They could be either selling those equities for a loan here or taking a loan against those equities to loan to GoPro (if the cost of capital is lower for them than GoPro, which seems plausible.)
I generally agree with your point about value extraction vs. re-investment.
Exactly. How can they come into existence except via an IPO or similar mechanism? At that moment, investment happens. The rest of the time, it does not. The stock market rising does not increase investment in industry. When you buy stocks at a stock exchange, you aren't investing in industry
You are saying that "investment" only happens when you provide capital to a corporation.
Presumably, under this definition, when you sell stock that is not "disinvestment".
Unless you are selling it back to the company itself. Then it is "disinvestment", because the total amount of capital provided to the corporation has gone down.
That is not what people mean by the term "investment". You need to find a different word, because "investment" has a more general meaning than the concept you are talking about.
People know it’s happening. What do you expect an average consumer to do about it? Pay more out of pocket due to the potential national security risks?
Right, because in an actual free market where DHI was not heavily subsidized, DJI drones would cost MUCH more, and the other drones would be competitive.
Same for BYD vs Tesla and every other car. It is easy to win in the "free market" when you give away your product.
Same for Uber and Lyft for many years — subsidized by VCs until they gained massive scale, effectively killed all the other competition, and now the prices have gone up when they have a lock on the market, a large moat, and the VCs want a return. In my area, what was a $30 ride to the airport a few years ago, far cheaper than any airport service, is now $89.
The entire concept of a "free market" is idealized to the point of fiction.
And remember dear readers, China and Iran openly helps Russia in their invasion of Ukraine. It is like the cold war never ended.
China's covert military training of Russian forces last year was personally approved by President Vladimir Putin's defence minister and directly involved at least four Russian and Chinese generals, according to two European officials and documents seen by Reuters.
Also on Avinox motors on e-mtn bikes. Originally made by DJI, then spun off into their own company, and they are starting to eat the competition on all e-mtn bikes at this point. Bosch, TQ, Shimano, et al just can't compete, especially because Avinox is iterating at startup pace and all the rest are iterating at bike pace (slowly).
Not just subsidised, but the supply chain is literally in the same block.
That's the thing Chinese do where other countries can't compete. If you're making product X, all of your suppliers are within walking distance around your assembly line.
This is written like an American who is both ignorant of cybersecurity, American politics, and of the advantages that the US has benefitted from since at least WW2.
The core points are:
- we can't trust a connected GoPro device any more than a connected DJI device
- Just because a device is developed in China doesn't make it a vulnerability.
- Just because a device is made in the US doesn't make it resistant to vulnerabilities.
- US politicians don't have any incentive to tell us the truth. Because of the nature of national security, they could completely lie about any accusations of Chinese involvement and we would never know, especially now that the US president fired anyone who resists his demands for fealty.
- GoPro was first to market but stopped adding value once they IPOed. US public companies depending on IP protections / rent seeking rather than cutthroat competition is the core reason DJI is beating GoPro, not Chinese government subsidies to the sector.
- China's middle and upper classes are far larger than the US's. Similarly, they are training more college grads. China also has more companies being created and more creative destruction than the US. It doesn't matter if we build a better v1.0 product because their innovation engine is moving at least as fast as ours.
- the US has had a 70 year head start on "a near zero cost of capital". Being the west's financier after WW2 and later the world's reserve currency.
I don't pity a US company because it chose not to compete with a Chinese company despite starting from an advantage.
His point wasn't that chinese-made products have more vulnerabilities, what? what are these reading skills.
GoPro has probably never been in a patent litigation in their favor. His point wasn't limited to GoPro either.
The main driving force isn't anything but the simple fact that they can undercut everyone. Some of it is innovation in production methods, some of it subsidies, some of it is the low salaries, some of it is the 12hour shifts seen as normal.
Is it deserved? Sure. They let western companies unintentionally ship their entire know-how to China. Is it OK from a US perspective, does it mean that they can't do anything now, and should just source Chinese products for everything? Hell no.
Thanks for making HN as braindead as Reddit! Thanks to people like you, I'm becoming a master at translating Chinese socials!
Cameras need to connect somewhere, somehow to offload their videos/photos. Whether that's network, USB, SD card, those are all attack vectors. Hell, even the files themselves can act as payloads.
My Insta360s have wifi builtin, you have to connect to it with their phone app to do some of the processing. It's kind of nice, especially away from home but I wouldn't know how you'd know if it connected to something else or something else connected to it.
I don't know how you'd get devices like that certified for certain higher security applications.
Cloud risks are very true - for both GoPro and DJI.
About a year ago, I was looking for an action camera. I found a good DJI product, but then I learned that you have to link the camera to an app in order to use it. I am fundamentally opposed to that idea, so I looked up the equivalent GoPro camera. Turns out GoPro also requires you to activate the camera with a smartphone app.
I don't want to send my data to a company for something as trivial as an action cam. I was surprised to find that the US model had such an evil requirement, mirroring the Chinese model.
In the end, I bought the DJI action cam (cheaper, better) and activated it in a public location using a burner phone. You only need to use the app once to free the device and take it offline, after which you can delete the surveillance app. I have found no fingerprinting in the created media yet.
GoPro would have made an easy sale with me, if they had been more privacy/power aware.
As someone with both an Insta360 camera and a Bambu printer, I feel it, would love to buy GoPro and Prusa, but the value just isn't there.
For one, I had a GoPro whose sensor broke after about 20 minutes of recorded. I ended up getting 3 different replacements, all of which also broke. In the end I just forgot about it when my home burnt down in a wildfire. I got an Insta360 with better picture quality that's also been more reliable for a similar cost.
And I would have loved to buy a Prusa printer but I got a Bambu P1S combo for $600, an equivalent Prusa plus the $300 shipping to Canada would have been ~$2500 CAD. For making trinkets for my 3 year old son plus the few random other things I'd make it's not worth it to pay 4x the money.
Maybe it'll forever be this way due to the differences in cost of living but I do feel as though there's a million barriers to entry to building a business in North America, at least a business that's not fully online.
Core One+ is $1899 CAD, the MMU3 for the Core One+ is $579 CAD and shipping was quoted over $300 since they ship from Europe and not the US to Canada. Just put these into their shopping cart on their site, right now quoting $2887 (including shipping and duties).
I did get a particularly good deal on the P1S combo apparently, the price on their website already higher than what I paid and it's significantly less in Canada than the US with exchange rate. Are they exactly equivalent, dunno, but both are the cheapest Core XY models with enclosure + colour changer that either sell.
Prusa is also cheaper in the US and EU than Canada.
FWIW you can get a kit Core One+ for $999 USD in the US. I actually prefer to get the machine as a kit as assembly helps with understanding the workings of the machine for maintenance.
They’re not remotely equivalent though. That’s like saying that a raspberry pi and 16” monitor are equivalent to a MacBook Pro because that’s the cheapest 16” monitor Apple sells.
If all you want to do is drive the kids to school, you want the Honda, but that doesn’t make the 2 products equivalent.
But if all you’re doing is printing toys for the kids an A1 mini would have been less than half the price of the P1S. The enclosure is mostly a waste if you’re only printing PLA. You’re going to end up venting anyway. Core XY is a little faster than a bedslinger, but if you’re doing a lot of multi color prints, the material change time will dominate, so you won’t see much practical difference.
> both do a variety of materials.
The p1s does not regulate the chamber temperature, so the variety of materials you can get good results either is much more limited.
This is of course beyond stupid considering the pace of 3d printer vs one PET bottle blow molding machine that can produce same shape shells at thousand units /hour.
They're completely different niches. Blow molding helps you make a million of a thing, 3D printing helps you make a million different things. There's great for low volume items without significant strength requirements. That includes prototypes but also anything niche - like parts for blow molding machines.
Another comment mentioned you can CNC a blow mold. That's completely true and I'm not versed in it enough to know when you'd prefer subtractive or additive rapid prototyping. A 3D printer is a bit more flexible in the shapes it can make but it can only make them out of plastic, which is a huge tradeoff.
Is it? With a 3d printer you can print any piece on demand, change design without changing tooling and make pieces that are semi-hollow inside for lightness.
Edit - should add, early in the war Ukraine was crowd-sourcing drone parts from citizens with 3D printers at home. This likely grew from that.
This isnt endurance contest, interceptor drones are half battery half explosive with miniscule weight taken by motors electronics and packaging. We are talking 10KW power draw for around a minute.
You can rapid manufacture moulds too, cnc alu is good for 1K shots easily.
But blow moulding machines big enough to make a drone shell are massive.
If you had suggested a more portable technology like vacuum forming maybe you would have a point, but blow moulding is definitely one of the more expensive and least portable ways of forming plastic.
For us living in "the rest of the world", we only have a choice of being spied on by chinese or american companies, and american ones can do a lot more damage to us than chinese.
So if we're getting spied on anyway, why not buy a better product?
So long as you don’t live in India, Taiwan, Australia, Japan, South Korea… or maybe even the countries Russia their ally is antagonistic with, like Ukraine, Turkey, all of Europe.
100%. It would strongly behoove the US to encourage domestic 3d printer manufacture (or friendly countries like Japan), to the point of bannning Bambu and Chinese companies. Obviously we are doing fine for industrial 3d printers, but the small scale consumer stuff is very important too.
If and when AI commiditizes professional services, it would be good to have modern industry to fall back on. With 3d printing the gap isnt insurmountable yet.
However, our country is run by lawyers, not engineers, so I dont have too much hope. At least a lot of our billionaires started out as engineers...
The cost of your proposed policies to consumers, to the Americans who can create because of cheap great Chinese printers and wouldn't be able to create under your policy... is much greater than the abstract industrial policy benefit.
I'm not sure what stops some of these industries from essentially being more nationalist like China, but more centrist as a company like Palantir. If these risks are as big as you claim, a centralized authority should reverse engineer the things that work done in China or where-ever and use open source/build a better software stack that supplants what's out on the market currently.
> If we replaced the brand with Insta360, that puts a big attack vector all over the place
Oh right, because the US has never done that ? Its public knowledge the US does supply-chain interdiction, see the infamous NSA “upgrade” factories as just one example.
The US is also just as capable of writing buggy code full of security holes as everyone else. Even more so today with the advent of "vibe code it and ship it".
It is only an attack vector if you allow it to be so, defence in depth and all that ...
> I guess for people who don’t have any experience working on federal government adjacent aerospace stuff, the idea of natsec considerations for IT hardware seems entirely abstract
But its all magically ok if its got a "designed in the USA" and/or "made in the USA" badge on it ?
The problem I see here is a desire to use COTS stuff out-of-the-box in natsec environments led by a desire to save money and/or save time. Seems to me like one of those "pick two" moments where the "security" option was thrown in the trash.
GoPro has been “in trouble” for years and years. All of that may be true but they just haven’t justified their survival. They may well be better off selling to Garmin or another domestic air defense vendor and be done in the consumer market.
FWIW current administration wants to play this same game, but they def won’t do it as well.
Sounds like a problem for America. And totally irrelevant to the state of GoPro the company. It sounds like you're advocating for corporate welfare on the basis that a failing company is "based in" USA, even though their most impactful operations are overseas.
>People think this doesn’t matter, but GoPros are used all over in aerospace. If we replaced the brand with Insta360, that puts a big attack vector all over the place.
I'm actually surprised to hear that GoPro is used in aerospace applications. I assumed that they would use cameras from companies like Teledyne that have a more industrial/military customer base. That is to say, there are almost certainly options for domestic camera manufacturers if required.
You are right about China. The West (especially Apple) taught China how to manufacture while losing the ability ourselves and for some reason didn't consider that they would figure out how to design products themselves and bring the entire product chain within the country.
Individuals at the end of the day mostly care about buying the cheapest thing that does the job. They don't consider where it comes from. Even those that do care have limits in how they will compromise (there is a reason why I bought Bambu Labs 3D printer even though I would have preferred a Prusa).
The western countries deindustrialized themselves though. That's just capitalism chasing ever increasing profits and moving production to where it's cheaper, i.e.from west to China. In fact this was cherished because it increased share holder profits.
I'm not sure what attack vectors are there if you don't connect your camera to company wifi, I guess it could technically put a payload on SD card but... eh ?
> When China wants to deindustrialize non-Chinese industries for strategic and/or natsec reasons, they are incredibly good at it. (And note it’s not US-only, China targets basically ANY brand that isn’t Chinese. China absolutely does this to Europe as well… and you can see them doing it in real-time with automotive.)
First, Gopros are made and assembled in China (with I think some in Mexico now to avoid tariffs). And absolutely nothing stops them from just sending potentially malicious firmware to the non-china made ones too
Second China didn't make Gopros fucking overheat, shoddy engineering did. They rested on their laurels while competition worked hard on making better product. If it was just production costs the top end GoPros would be the best in the niche, just more expensive, but no they are both more expensive and worse product.
Third, it is not "Chinese govt. doing it" (tho they are certainly helping), it is west constantly sending their tech advantage away just to get some cheap production there. Whether directly like Apple or Tesla, or indirectly, by allowing chinese capital to buy western car companies and instantly get all the tech then just apply their more integrated production to make same stuff cheaper.
West gave China their advantage willingly, for a short term profits, and continue to do so, then try to mask it as some kind of malicious push (not saying it isn't happening, just saying the western companies are complicit in it) rather than corporate greed ruining everything yet again.
If you’ve spent a life and the market being supreme then it’s a shock. China’s economic system is wiping the floor with the west.
The U.K. has just nationalised a steel plant which had been bought by China to stop it from being destroyed, and of course the economic right wing hate this as steel is far cheaper to import.
You have a point here. China vs USA is just a part of the whole thing.
If we discuss the problem of China doing industrial spying and applying subsides to destroy non-chinese companies, we should mention also that countries like Israel had been stealing tirelessly for decades every US army and US industrial secrets that they could grab. They had been caught later selling this secrets for money to third countries like Russia. And the cherry on top is that all was subsidized, but with US money this time.
Denying North Korean or Chinese people access to places with industrial secrets, while at the same time granting Israeli people free VIP access just because... "white people" (so they can sell it to Russia, and Russians can sell it later to China and NK) does not really make any sense.
>People think this doesn’t matter, but GoPros are used all over in aerospace. If we replaced the brand with Insta360, that puts a big attack vector all over the place.
In what way exactly? The camera will magically communicate to the mothership?
China does not want to deindustrialize any country. Why do you think of everything in terms of war and domination ? China has built a industry capable of taking any product and make it better and cheaper. There is no psycho strategy behind it. They will do it till every chinese will live a comfortable life equal to an american. At that point america will be able to compete again.
The CCP has publicly explained that their strategy is indeed to dominate key sectors via gov subsidies, de-industrialize other nations and gain strategic leverage in the process.
Two main reasons. It requires taking a lot of freedom / agency away from individuals, and redirecting much of the profits of successful enterprises to subsidies (and suppressing individual consumption and standard of living).
America does that for aerospace & some defense stuff. But the reason not to is that the industrial policy needed to do it like China does has the effect of reduced wages, longer work hours, and lower quality of life.
The US (and EU/UK) subsidies defense, but imo that’s different. First, it’s more understandable to want domestic arms production. Second, they are not seeking to subsidize to undercut foreign suppliers and drive them out of business.
The US is not pushing subsidized F35 fighters all over the world to drive other producers under.
Insta360 is a Chinese company designed in Shenzhen and built there, too.
People think this doesn’t matter, but GoPros are used all over in aerospace. If we replaced the brand with Insta360, that puts a big attack vector all over the place.
A similar pattern happened with drones with DJI, intentionally killing all non-Chinese drone brands. And with BambuLabs (founded by ex-DJI) with 3D printers (the only good non-Chinese printer that doesn’t cost 10-100x as much is Prusa, and they’re facing extremely strong headwinds).
Legitimately better Chinese products (incredible engineering) that have massive industrial policy support, probably industrial espionage support (as in the case of DJI for certain), massive influencer marketing campaigns, and near zero cost of capital. When China wants to deindustrialize non-Chinese industries for strategic and/or natsec reasons, they are incredibly good at it. (And note it’s not US-only, China targets basically ANY brand that isn’t Chinese. China absolutely does this to Europe as well… and you can see them doing it in real-time with automotive.)
The only surprising thing to me is how people just act like it’s not happening. I guess for people who don’t have any experience working on federal government adjacent aerospace stuff, the idea of natsec considerations for IT hardware seems entirely abstract, but it’s incredibly real if you do.