Internet "tear down the wall", the decompressed vitality "Ask 2022"

In the early morning of September 6, 2014, Alibaba disclosed an open letter from its founder Jack Ma to investors in the prospectus to the United States at that time. In this modest open letter, Ma mentioned the same keyword 24 times: ecosystem.

Two months later, Tencent founder Ma Huateng proposed at the World Internet Conference held in November of that year that Tencent should focus on making Internet connectors, "not only connecting people, but also connecting services and devices." ”

Looking back now, whether it is ecology or connection, the different expressions of the two horses represent the common growth path of the Internet giants who master traffic, users, and funds in the past seven or eight years: with themselves as the center, connecting many branches, and establishing a self-sufficient, borderless but isolated Internet small world.

But that all changes in 2021. This year, the Internet giants that once "played their own game" began to tear down the thick walls between each other. Not only interconnection, this year, compliance has also become one of the keywords of Internet giants accustomed to the "unlimited game" model. This year, a more fair and just economic order of Internet platforms was established.

Although connectivity still has a long way to go in the future, these changes are undoubtedly welcome signals.

Giants tear down walls

In 2021, a "long time to see" thing is that users can successfully click on the Taobao link shared by friends to WeChat, without having to copy the Tao password that looks like a bunch of Martian text, and then open the Taobao APP. This light touch is a big step for the Internet — the last time it was clicked successfully was eight years ago.

In fact, from the 3Q war ten years ago, to the earlier cat and dog war, the blue orange war, and then to the public confrontation of Internet tycoons in the circle of friends in the past two years and the "blocking and banning memorabilia" in mid-2021 Behind these events that witnessed the history of China's Internet, castles with their own moats were set up: whether it is Tencent, which is mainly social, or Ali, which is known for e-commerce, or the byte system that starts with content and the Baidu system that re-searches, etc., The giants went all the way from the beginning to the closed-loop ecology with thick walls.

A closed loop means being self-sufficient, and disconnecting an external link is a key step in a closed loop: I can't get your resources, and you don't want to take mine. However, the game between Internet giants about traffic and users has made ordinary users lose their choice. Not only shopping, listening to songs, sharing short videos, reading articles and other daily behaviors, users need to go back and forth between multiple apps.

But a flurry of changes is coming in 2021.

WeChat, which has already exceeded 1.2 billion monthly active users, announced on September 17 that it will promote a "phased and step-by-step" interconnection plan with security as the bottom line. Also in September, the outside world also found that Ali's Ele.me, Youku and other APP has been connected to WeChat Pay, in addition to hema bazaar and other weChat Mini Programs. In November, ByteDance's Douyin also said that it received an application from Tencent's creative service platform to access the Douyin open platform. The two Internet companies have previously publicly intimidated each other many times because of the "ban" issue. On December 27, Meituan and Kuaishou also announced interconnection cooperation.

The direct root cause of the demolition of the wall between the Internet giants is that in September 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology launched a rectification of the behavior of blocking external links, and the companies participating in the meeting on the same day included Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, Baidu, Huawei, Xiaomi, Momo, 360, NetEase and a series of well-known Internet companies.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology also bluntly said at an event organized by the State Council's new office in mid-September 2021: "How to ensure the normal access of legitimate website links is the basic requirement for the development of the Internet." Restricting the identification, resolution and normal access of URL links without a legitimate reason seriously affects the user's experience, damages the rights and interests of users, and disrupts the market order. ”

Where are the boundaries

"Because of the profits, we found so many opportunities, and we went into a lot of areas." Ma Huateng said this at the 2014 conference mentioned above.

As he said, in the past few years, cross-border has become the main theme of Internet giants. In fact, rather than cross-border, it is better to say that the boundaries of Internet platform giants are a magical existence. They seem to be ubiquitous, extending their tentacles to more and more consumption scenarios, because where users spend their time, where the traffic is, where the business is. However, the disorderly expansion of capital, as well as the "two alternatives" brought about by the expansion of volume and fierce competition, have become the other pole of the Unlimited Game of Internet giants.

In 2021, the "unlimited game" that the Internet platform previously seemed to have no end was subjected to strong supervision. Antitrust is a key area.

The two largest administrative fines in the history of the internet are issued in 2021.

Following the announcement of the State Administration for Market Regulation on December 24, 2020, alibaba group was investigated for suspected monopolistic behaviors such as "choosing one of the two" according to the report. 107 days later, in April 2021, the State Administration for Market Regulation issued a record fine of 18.228 billion yuan to Alibaba. In October 2021, Meituan was fined 3.442 billion yuan by the State Administration for Market Regulation for "choosing one of the two". It should be known that since the implementation of the Anti-Monopoly Law in 2008, there has not been a single administrative penalty in the Internet field before.

What needs to be emphasized is that there is no problem in occupying a dominant market position, and the abuse of market dominance is the focus of supervision. The State Administration for Market Regulation and other departments also convened an administrative guidance meeting for 34 Internet companies on April 13, requiring each platform enterprise to conduct a comprehensive self-inspection and self-examination within one month, and thoroughly rectify each item. At this "4.13 conference", the platform forced "two to choose one" was considered to be a prominent manifestation of the willful and disorderly expansion of capital.

In fact, strong regulation has hit almost all internet platforms in 2021.

On the morning of March 3, the State Administration for Market Regulation announced that five community group buying enterprises, namely Orange Heart Preferred, Duoduo Buy, Meituan Preferred, Shihui Group, and Food Enjoyment Association, were punished for implementing improper price behavior. Among them, Food Sharing will be fined 500,000 yuan, and the remaining 4 companies will be fined 1.5 million yuan each.

In July 2021, the State Administration for Market Regulation also notified 22 cases of "illegal implementation of concentration of undertakings" at one time. Internet platforms such as Didi, Ali, and Tencent have been named many times. In November 2021, the State Administration for Market Regulation once again opened an investigation into 43 cases of concentration of undertakings that had not been declared in accordance with the law. Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Suning and other Internet platforms have been named again.

Although the State Administration for Market Regulation only fined the above-mentioned enterprises involved in the case 500,000 yuan each, its more important significance is to release a signal to strengthen anti-monopoly supervision in the Internet field. On November 18, 2021, the National Anti-Monopoly Administration was officially listed.

Build order

In 2008, when the Anti-Monopoly Law was first implemented, the Internet platform was not yet the protagonist of anti-monopoly, and the future scenery of BAT was undecided, and the communication network had not yet entered the 4G era. But thirteen years later, mobile phones have become the center of everything that links everything, and a market value of more than 100 billion has become a threshold for Internet companies to be called giants.

Capital acquisition is a shortcut to the rapid expansion of the Internet platform. Being bought by giants is also the expectation of many entrepreneurs. But more entrepreneurs are discovering another reality: investing all their money and starting to pay off, and internet platforms that also find opportunities with more money and larger users, rumble through your world. One of the rules of the Internet world is that volume is king.

In the huge ecology that it has established, the problem of Internet platforms as both "athletes" and "referees" has also aroused social doubts many times. How to ensure that all players in the Internet arena can compete fairly?

In 2021, regulators will successively issue explanations, guidelines, etc., to give clearer answers to these questions.

In February 2021, the Anti-Monopoly Commission of the State Council formulated and issued the Anti-Monopoly Guidelines of the Anti-Monopoly Committee of the State Council on the Platform Economy, emphasizing that the Anti-Monopoly Law and supporting laws and regulations apply to all industries, treat all types of market entities equally, fairly and justly, and aim to prevent and stop monopolistic behavior in the platform economy and promote the orderly innovation and healthy development of platform economy norms.

At the "4.13 meeting" mentioned above, the regulatory authorities listed specific behaviors that need to be seriously rectified, including: forcing the implementation of "two choices", abusing market dominance, implementing "pinch mergers and acquisitions", burning money to seize the "community group purchase" market, implementing "big data killing", ignoring counterfeiting and shoddy products, information leakage, and implementing tax-related violations. Subsequently, 34 participating enterprises issued "letters of commitment" promising not to implement relevant monopolistic behaviors.

On 23 October 2021, the Anti-Monopoly Law also publicly solicited public comments. This is the first amendment to China's Anti-Monopoly Law in the 13 years since its implementation.

In addition to the strong guarantee of regulatory regulations, interconnection and the consequent reduction of traffic costs and the expansion of the user pool are also believed to further strengthen the fair order of Competition in the Internet market. However, the new pattern will undoubtedly bring new competition and games.

Responsible Editor: Huang Xingli Editor-in-Chief: Han Feng