Despite their various fields and interests, members of the TechNode community agree: The theme for China tech 2021 was regulations.
Sometimes the regulations came in waves. Sometimes the rules were new, sometimes just newly enforced. There were so many rules that, like a chronic state of pandemic alertness, regulation fatigue set in by year’s end.
There were industry-rattling rules, like the bans on bitcoin mining and trading in May, soon followed by the data security review that forced Didi’s US delisting. And while we were still digesting that, there was the sweeping ban on the most profitable edtech services. Mostly, though, there were fines. Tech giants like Alibaba, Meituan, and Pinduoduo faced fines large (for anti-competitive practices) and small (for illegal information releases).
Next came the drastic limits imposed on minors’ playing hours, which could gnaw into game-makers’ profits and dent the world’s largest population of players. Meanwhile, even tech companies never previously enmeshed with virtual or augmented worlds claimed to be ready to soar into the metaverse in 2022. Already making great—frankly, surprising—advances in 2021 were several homegrown silicon chip designers and a handful of the slew of electric carmakers.
In the wake of news of tragic employee deaths and abusive working conditions, the grueling hours demanded by Big Tech got renewed official and unofficial attention in 2021 as well. It turns out that requiring employees to work six days a week, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m–the so-called 996 workweek–violates labor laws, according to a statement the Supreme People’s Court issued in August.
Some of the biggest companies quickly declared that they were abolishing weekend work.
So are tech workers shouldering a lighter workload now? Is Big Tech assuming a kinder, more humane face? TechNode’s friends and contributors are once again united and …. skeptical. On the upside, at least the ten richest tech moguls, notably PInduoduo founder Colin Huang, got whacked in their pocketbooks this year.
Wishing you a 2022 minus 996.
Read More at https://technode.com/2022/01/02/china-tech-2021-technode-sources-review-look-forward-2022/
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