US influencer after China tour: ‘E-wallets! Bullet trains! Food carts on demand! This is the future!’
Reality check:
• PayPal dropped in 1998 — digital payments 25+ years ago.
• Grubhub was delivering food apps in 2004.
• Japan ran bullet trains since 1964, France TGV since 1981.
China scaled QR-code everything and HSR massively by leapfrogging old systems. Impressive rollout.
But calling it revolutionary ‘new tech’ ignores why the West didn’t go all-in earlier: mature credit cards with rewards, legacy banking that already worked, car-centric infrastructure, privacy regs, and fragmented markets. No need to burn the old when it functioned fine.