The cottage is not a scourge, hardware will revive itself.

90 's Shenzhen Relying on imitation manufacturing cell phone manufacturers dare not on the phone on the department name, can only be printed on the "SZ" two letters, over time, relying on plagiarism, imitation of the product will be shouted into the "cottage", Shenzhen also named "Zhai Du." Shanzhai has become an innovative black hole: Your product is available, or just the idea in the Kickstarter exposure, Shenzhen can quickly and cheaply complete the "creation", and ultimately faster than the original products, lower prices to the market, but also to carry out "localized micro-innovation." It is not just hardware, software, catering, architecture, design and many other areas that are performing similar phenomena. Software and the Internet has been blown beyond recognition by the cottage storm, and a similar cottage storm has been staged in the Smart hardware field recently.

Hardware Cottage easier than software

Tencent, China's most replicated Internet company, is located in Shenzhen. Before the 3Q war, Tencent was in the copy China Internet, "incremental improvement will be the user experience to the extreme", based on a strong user base and social network ability to landing.

The former Tencent employee Chen Chris ' comments can represent the classic logic of the replicator: "If the road to success has been paved, why do you have to go through a path that is fraught with danger and is not worth the candle?" Standing on the shoulders of giants, you can get not only speed, but also do your things better in this time of saving. ”

Shanzhai may not be the company's behavior, the subordinate team in order to quickly achieve performance or KPI, eventually embarked on a "shortcut." Such a cottage in the corporate sector is not even spared, such as mobile phone QQ last year, the micro-letter replication.

Lianzhong, Storm, UC, NetEase, rice Chat, the United States and other products have been "replicated" have tried to denounce, but finally powerless. If you can't apply for a patent protection for a product, and you're suing the replicator and defeating it, it's pointless to denounce it, and many of the products of the replicated founders are Consumer-to-consumer (copy 2 China) for foreign products, such as the American Regiment. Ui/ue's duplication is more at the moral level, which makes the internet the hardest hit for Shanzhai.

The cottage originated from hardware, with the hardware revival trend, Shanzhai is also returning hardware. In particular, the public-raised web site, the first release of creative redistribution of the product model is to provide natural convenience for the cottage behavior.

Patent protection cannot be permanently. Because of geographical differences, laws and regulations have a huge difference, but the information is highly developed, this asymmetry so that "offshore cottage" behavior. Shenzhen has the world's best supply chain conditions, many overseas entrepreneurs are even willing to do so in Shenzhen office, supply chain advantage in fact also give the hardware cottage provides the basis for the Shenzhen team can use a shorter time, lower costs to make products.

Quick button, smart hand ring, smart camera, beats headset, smoke alarm, can be seen on the Kickstarter of the basic products can find the corresponding Chinese version. In the IPhone6 has not yet been published in Shenzhen has a cottage version, this is the strength of the cottage.

Unlike software Shanzhai, hardware shanzhai is easier. Software can be the experience to the extreme, can rely on the content of operations, can continue to iterate to prevent plagiarism, but the hardware to prevent can only rely on patent protection. That's why software Shanzhai is often a big company that can win, for example, the replication of Twitter Sina Weibo success and the failure of the meal, copy Facebook Tencent Success and happy net failure, while the software cottage is small team combat, stuffy sound rich, under the surface of the Shanzhai TV box occupies 80% of China's market share , the millet and le-viewing box beat black and blue.

Is the cottage a drag or a booster?

Some say hardware Shanzhai is hurting "hardware revival". Overseas entrepreneurs are wary of China's gaze at Kickstarter's shanzhai owners, just days after beats claims to sue Chinese counterfeiters and shanzhai makers. Patent and Brand protection measures complete beats by Apple after the acquisition of a more abundant resources to play this Cross-border "anti-Shanzhai" war, the common entrepreneurial team to face "Off-shore Cottage" can only be exclaiming.

Lei Feng founder Lin Jun in the dialogue "digital survival," the author of Negroponte, once euphemistically explain what is the cottage: "Imitation of innovation." Hardware manufacturing is a special centralization of things, extremely dependent on the supply chain, product cycle is very long, which led to its lagging behind the market demand, 6-12 months out of the product, user demand has already changed. Shanzhai will shorten the development cycle, the user likes the things Shenzhen people can be built in a week and cheap to the user. In theory, Shanzhai has shortened the entire manufacturing process and cycle of hardware.

Chuling, an associate professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, who has studied Shenzhen's manufacturing industry, is more rational. On the one hand, the cottage to make Shenzhen manufacturing industry developed, for its precipitation a large number of hardware talent, which is a strong culture and open source hardware in Shenzhen today has a certain relationship. On the other hand, if the regular process to do the hardware, in addition to long cycle, high cost, but also encountered government approvals and other red tape. Shanzhai can circumvent these restrictions, such as shanzhai boxes that bypass licences, copyrights and controls. Like the hacker spirit, although the cottage is illegal, but more than the system can be better for the community to complete its functions. Ray technology found to be able to support the views of Professor Qiu Baidu Encyclopedia "cottage Culture" entry, the cottage has become "anti-authority, anti-mainstream and with Carnival, deconstruction, anti-intellectual and postmodern representation of the mass cultural phenomenon of subculture." ”

The cottage based on existing things for progressive improvement, or even inferior, such as Tencent. Hardware field to do this easier, the hardware configuration is relatively fixed, and Shenzhen has leading components and production technology. However, Negroponte is not impressed by this ability. "Progressive improvement, while very safe, can sometimes be successful, but it is a disease and an enemy of innovation". But he also believes that "progressive improvement is extraordinary".

Cottage culture is no longer rat

One trend is that the product claims that it has no fear of plagiarism, even hardware. It is because it is difficult to copy, or to say there are unique barriers and patterns, some hardware has been to open. The latest example is Tesla's claim that it will open all patents to people who use it in good faith.

The Open-source movement of software, and the Shanzhai movement is essentially a challenge to authority and mainstream, Android and Chrome's great success, and open source runs counter to Microsoft's growing decline to some extent illustrates the power of openness, although it is now beginning to accept but too late.

The hardware sector is also showing the trend of open source hardware, and the Arduino Development Board's ecological boom allows creators to create hardware based on this, but this help is more in the product validation phase. But as Lin Jun's point of view, Shanzhai is not the same as open source. Shanzhai is for commercial purposes, and open source hardware is more based on interest.

The idea of opening a patent to open hardware is that hardware players are beginning to stop being wary of replication threats. If someone had patented a "car with 4 round wheels", I'm afraid the car industry would be far less developed today. It is because of the development of the cottage industry, smartphones can do less than 300 yuan price is even lower, headphones, audio, television and other digital products so that low-income people can buy, and there is no lack of the square to the mother of the intelligent audio players such as a new product.

While patents may seem to protect innovation, they are likely to produce catalysts that reduce market speed and increase product costs. As mentioned in the previous example of the shortcut button, in the United States, "ancestor" products can be sold dozens of times times the cost of high prices to earn huge profits, if there is no shanzhai people are afraid to suffer the user.

The cottage is not worthless.

Shenzhen, which has been dubbed the village for many years, is looking for ways to remove this hat and invest heavily in new industries such as smart hardware to make a transition to "China's creation". Thunder technology observation found that Shenzhen has a number of original projects, some of which have been trying to login to Kickstarter this global innovation Holy Land. Cottage, whether it will hurt the hardware revival, has not yet reached the conclusion of the coffin.