How Chinese Apps Handled Covid-19

“Closed-off management” involved many features.30 People were required to shelter in their homes and were given permission to leave only once or twice a week for essentials. Shoppers waited in lines and kept six feet of separation between themselves and others—a development that stunned both local and foreign observers familiar with the usual press

In the short run, this cash-flow stimulated the Chinese economy and pumped up valuations. But the long-term legacy of this movement is the data environment it created. By enrolling the vendors, processing the orders, delivering the food, and taking in the payments, China’s O2O champions began amassing a wealth of real-world data on the consumption

Chinese cities were the perfect laboratory for experimentation. Urban China can be a joy, but it can also be a jungle: crowded, polluted, loud, and less than clean. After a day spent commuting on crammed subways and navigating eight-lane intersections, many middle-class Chinese just want to be spared another trip outdoors to get a meal or run an er

Some scoffed at the “China virus” or the “Kung Flu,” while others geared down for the ordeal to come. Political rhetoric bumped heads with scientific prediction, as varying descriptions of the virus dictated reactions to the disease. A lack of a coherent narrative meant a lack of unified response.

An explosion of these services pushed Chinese companies to roll up their sleeves and do the grunt work of running an operations-heavy business in the real world. In my view, that willingness to get one’s hands dirty in the real world separates Chinese technology companies from their Silicon Valley peers.