[The Economist]
IN MARCH 2012 two Chinese internet companies, Youku and Tudou, announced they were going to merge. The deal sounded just like many in the West: in a booming but overcrowded market, consolidation was overdue and the two leaders, both still making losses, decided to join forces. Yet the deal was also unlike any in the West, because there is nothing quite like Youku and Tudou elsewhere. The two are online video companies, showing anything from Japanese cartoons to “Prison Break”, as well as an increasing amount of their own content. Each has more than 200m subscribers. The closest thing elsewhere is YouTube, but the Chinese are less keen than Westerners on home-made videos, preferring professional fare as a welcome alternative to the dull fodder served up on state television. There is another difference, too. Behind the Great Firewall, YouTube, like Facebook, is blocked. China demonstrates a basic truth: that the internet, despite its global image, is not the same everywhere. “The internet doesn’t exist,” says Steve Prentice of Gartner, a research and consulting firm. “There are 190 different internets.”
One way or another, just about every government tries to control what its citizens may do online. Using Skype to make a voice call, Mr Prentice notes, is routine in America, subject to some restrictions in Canada and can get you arrested in Ethiopia.
Lire : economist.com
0 commentaires:
Enregistrer un commentaire