Wired's Howto Blog talks about fake iPhone (or iFone in some
cases) and how to spot and avoid them. Tip #4:
Don't buy products shipped directly from [China], and avoid
seller Web sites written in poor English.
I'm sorry - what? You didn't just say that - did you? A quote
from a different source:
A British author, who visited, was stunned by the economic
ambition of the nation's inhabitants, and appalled by what they
would do for the sake of profit. When he first arrived, he found
the city's bookstores rife with pirated copies of his novels, along
with those of his countrymen.
The country in this second instance? The USA. The author?
Charles Dickens. This was 1842.
A nation learning the ropes
The Boston Globe last august ran the piece (link at end): "A
nation of outlaws" - subtitled "A century ago, that wasn't China --
it was us." The basic premise: the US and Britain both, earlier in
their histories were places of economic cheating. All had/have IP
issues and health issues (putting toxic substances in items meant
for human consumption) related to misbehaving business
entities.
Counterfeiters of patent medicines were especially notorious.
This was a bit ironic, given that most of these remedies were
pretty spurious already, but that didn't stop the practice. The
most elaborate schemes involved importing empty bottles, filling
them with bogus concoctions, and then affixing fake labels from
well-respected European firms.
The article is not condoning these practices (nor am I), but is
making 2 points:
- That this has occurred before as nations "grow into"
market-accepted practices.
- This is generally "bad business" for the perpetrators and
eventually the market will bring itself to correction. (Usually
when the perpetrating nation begins to have economic reason to stop
such shenanigans [read: when China begins losing money to foreign
DVD pirates it will crackdown on its own DVD pirating].) Aside: for
those reading in the future, DVDs were little round discs that we
used to put movies on. And before you ask "Why didn't you just use
fancy-new-technology?" Because we didn't have fancy-new-technology
yet. You might have heard of "videocassette tapes" as well, DVDs
were similar.
Arguably #2 is a valid point: leave the market to its devices
and it will "find a happy place." #1, however, is utterly important
in today's world.
State
In software development there is a concern called "state." It's
a hard thing to design and get state right. In architecture (of
buildings) you have state as well. It's somewhat similar in both
disciplines:
- There are real artifacts that you use to build your building
(or software) that are "tangible" and therefore easier to design:
doors, steel beams, windows, etc. (or, webpages, code objects &
methods, libraries...)
- These artifacts you put together to make up bigger
buildings
- Any given user of your building doesn't touch your entire
design. They start in the lobby, admire the fountain, speak to the
person at the information desk, push the elevator button, and open
the door to the office.
State is the object they are using + the context they are in +
the context that the object is in. For example, a person comes to a
revolving door at the front of the build (object) and wants to go
in (their context - they could also find that object when they want
to go out - in fact, hopefully they will find this very same object
at that time) and the door currently is spinning (the context of
the object). Usually, in software development, we just say
"spinning door" and call that the state. The point is that when the
door is encountered it can be spinning or stopped (and presumably,
if stopped, if automatic: "off" or "on").
I won't go into the number of reasons this is tricky in software
development or how to get around: all interesting and useful
discussions.
Let's take another example: the elevator.
The elevator is an object that has state: which floor it is on,
whether its doors are open or closed, and whether it is currently
in motion (let's ignore in service/not in service - locked down by
firefighters and the wide variety of other nuanced shades that
exist). If I come up to the elevator and want to "interact with it"
(aka "go to a different floor"), I am very interested in its state.
If it is currently on my floor with its doors open (and not
moving), I'll get in. Otherwise, I'll wait for it to come.
To me, the elevator user, the state of the elevator is a very
important thing to know.
This is why smart elevator designers add colored lights to
elevators. These may be above the elevator doors to show which
floor it is on, or on the up/down buttons to show that it is in
"called state." (Really clever designers, by the way, understand
the state of "elevator waiting" and take the holistic "elevator
experience" into mind, may add distractions or other things to make
my wait seem less boring. A
great example at the Vancouver Sheraton Wall Center.)
You can see where I'm going with this…
Countries have States
Countries have states in their development and, any person
looking at any object should be aware of its state. It's very
important with any object: including a country. Here we're talking
development or maturity states, but my point is that information
about a point-in-time needs to form part of the observation.
You can't go comparing one country to another straight-up: you
need to account for differences culture, size, and state (among
other factors). The crux of the Boston Globe argument is that along
the road of free-market, there is an early "state" where piracy
exists. China is there now, and the USA was also at that state at
one time.
On Notice
Oh, and 1 more thing. I love you Wired, but, you're on notice,
for saying China=Fakers.
Links
"A Nation of Counterfeiters" Book by Stephen Mihm (Author of
Boston Globe Article) on Amazon: http://urltea.com/2jca