There’s a common theme if you frequent r/singapore. Whenever a restaurant closes down (and there have been a lot of closures in the past few years) someone will comment: a Chinese mala restaurant will open in its place.
I first learned about the competitiveness of Chinese restaurants many years ago. My wife (then girlfriend) told me she went to Haidilao with her family, and they offered to paint your nails with patterns while you wait. I was like, what does painting nails have to do with running a restaurant? What made Haidilao willing to go that far? Then I learned about neijuan (内卷, “to curl inwards”)1.
Neijuan came out from China. People there are so juan because China has too many everything. You have to juan harder or you lie flat and die. That’s why Chinese restaurants keep replacing non-Chinese restaurants. That’s why Haidilao paints your nails.
Five years ago I was looking for a new place to rent. I viewed a house in a mediocre location. Decent condition, nothing special. The landlord was asking $3000 per month, but I thought it was worth $2000-2200 before Covid2. After the viewing, the agent asked me how much I wanted to offer. He didn’t say it outright, but he was hinting I should offer above $3000. I told him our offer would be $3000. I could see his disappointment. Like, you’re not going to find anything with that attitude. That house was rented out for more than $3500.
Now it’s happening in software. AI made it so anyone can build an app in a weekend. But there aren’t more people buying apps, and people aren’t buying more apps. There are just… more apps. And apps don’t magically sell themselves.
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A factory has 100 workers. Each produces 100 units per month for $1000. One worker goes to the boss and says, I can do 200 units, just give me $1900. The boss does the math. It works. He fires someone and gives the extra work to this guy. Saves $100. The next worker sees this and says, I can do 200 units for $1800. Eventually, all the workers are doing 200 units and getting $900. Nobody is better off except the boss. ↩
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After Covid, all the foreigners came back to Singapore at the same time. Same number of houses, way more demand. Everyone had to juan just to find a place to live. ↩