Chinese digital business, will it really break through the wall?

INFS6016 Week 1 Digital Business Model Reflection | Session 1: Introduction and Overview

In the first week, we were introduced to the concept of digital business, which means the adoption of digital technology by organisations to create, deliver, and capture value. And we discussed the reason why the digital business matters through the activity of exchanging and sharing our daily used apps in terms of social connection, entertainment, travel and payment with our classmates.

( https://ideas.ted.com/heres-the-real-danger-that-facebook-google-and-the-other-tech-monopolies-pose-to-our-society/ )

During the activity, we found that some apps that we used were identical like instagram, facebook, which are the international impactful social media. In terms of payment, we all used Apple Pay as the major payment method in Australia. Also, with the lecture slides showing the evolution of phones and the history of largest companies, I found some of the apps that we used were provided by the big companies e.g. Alphabet, Apple. From here, it made me think the IT era is getting stronger with globalisation and its network effect, and the convergence of the usage of IT has appeared in the world. It sounds actually creepy if everyone uses the same apps. Some classmates from SouthEast Asia used apps such as Netfilix, Youtube, which were all dominated by western companies. It is like a monopoly.

( My Bilibili Personal Page 下雨叔叔)

On the other hand, Chinese classmates used apps like Bilibili, iQiyi, etc. And For payment and social media, Chinese classmates also used Wechat and Wechat Pay as well, which is different from other students from western countries.

But back on the list, the companies that created apps from China were not included in the list of Top ten largest or companies which got highest revenue in 2023, and only Alibaba was there in 2019.

As a Chinese person, we know that there’s a Great Firewall that blocked major western digital websites and platforms, for example, Google, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, and even Netflix were blocked as well. This can be the reason why we used different apps for different purposes, because we didn’t have a choice unless by using VPN. But from a digital business perspective, does it really protect the Chinese digital business from western invasion or does it limit the development of the Chinese digital business to a broader international audience and its competitiveness?

( This shows complaints from users on iQiyi saying the ads were too much even on membership https://www.3dmgame.com/news/202302/3862071.html)

( This article states that Baidu has many adult content without filtered)

I was wondering that not participating in the global competition with the most advanced global digital businesses might bring the laziness and slow down the innovation of digital businesses in China. Like Baidu, iQiyi, those Chinese companies were perfectly protected by the wall. Sadly, these apps don't get any better with time, then it brings up a worse reputation of junk information and overwhelming advertising with unreasonable membership e.g. paid membership in iQiyi still have to watch the ad as well as need to buy extra credit to watch specific films. In terms of Baidu, the distance has been dragged such a far way from Google.

So, Chinese digital business, will it really break through the wall?