---
title: "Internet Giants, Ignoring the Rules of Fair Play, Are Snatching the Livelihoods of Countless Vegetable Vendors"
description: "Community group buying has become increasingly popular, with internet giants like Meituan, Didi, and Pinduoduo entering the market with heavy subsidies, threatening the livelihoods of traditional vegetable vendors. The article argues that while efficiency improvements are beneficial, they must be balanced with social welfare to ensure that ordinary people can still earn a living."
author: "杨昇"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2020-12-01"
language: "en"
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---

# Internet Giants, Ignoring the Rules of Fair Play, Are Snatching the Livelihoods of Countless Vegetable Vendors

> Community group buying has become increasingly popular, with internet giants like Meituan, Didi, and Pinduoduo entering the market with heavy subsidies, threatening the livelihoods of traditional vegetable vendors. The article argues that while efficiency improvements are beneficial, they must be balanced with social welfare to ensure that ordinary people can still earn a living.

****Click "Read the original text" for details****
**-01-**
**This year, the "community group buying" business model has become increasingly popular**, and recently, topics related to community group buying have been hot in public discourse. As someone who is slow to catch on, I only noticed this business model after articles and topics about "community group buying" went viral in my social circle, and only then did I try it out.
Actually, a while ago, I went to a large supermarket in my residential area to pick up a JD.com package. The supermarket owner had taken over the JD business, earning a bit of extra income from parcel delivery alongside selling goods. But that day, I saw hundreds of small plastic bags at the supermarket entrance, each with a note attached, filled with various vegetables and other items. The owner's wife was arranging those bags.
I had already picked up my package and walked quite a distance, but my curiosity got the better of me, so I went back and asked the owner's wife what all those bags were about. She said they were group-buying goods from Xingsheng Youxuan, waiting for customers to pick them up.
Of course, I had heard of Xingsheng Youxuan; I'd heard it was very popular, and that group-buying vegetables and fruits there was very cheap. But being someone who resists new things, I hadn't tried it and didn't plan to. Actually, before I heard of Xingsheng Youxuan, about two years ago, a friend recommended Changsha's local community group buying "Niwo Nin," saying that many residential areas had "Niwo Nin" group leaders, and group buying was very popular. Of course, my friend wasn't recommending it because he liked group buying; he was just researching and looking for investment opportunities.
**As for me, I just listened and didn't think about buying, let alone researching their model.** I thought "Niwo Nin" was still popular, but a few days ago I read a report that in August 2019, "Niwo Nin" had been sold to "Shihuituan." Now, "Shihuituan" and "Xingsheng Youxuan" are the two most representative head startups in community group buying.
Recently, it was reported that internet giants such as Meituan, Didi, Pinduoduo, Alibaba, JD.com, and ByteDance have all joined community group buying. The brands under which these giants entered community group buying are:
Whenever internet giants enter an industry, that industry is bound to be bloody. Recently, the most brutal competition has probably been in the vegetable-selling industry.
**-02-**
My family has always bought vegetables at the wet market and large supermarkets, mostly at the wet market and small vegetable shops near home. But today at noon, I couldn't resist the low prices and placed two orders on a giant's app.
In the morning, my wife was planning to go to the small alley near the university to buy vegetables, where there are many small vendors with lots of vegetables at cheap prices. Because it was cold, before she left, I suddenly remembered the rumors about the giants' crazy subsidies in community group buying, so I opened a giant's app to see if there was any free lunch to grab.
As a first-time visitor to the app's community group buying channel, as soon as I entered, countless new-user special offers were thrown at me. Not to mention new-user red packets, there was an endless queue of exclusive deals for new users: 400 grams of Yunnan ginseng fruit for only 0.99 yuan, 750 grams of Henan Liuao honey sweet potato for 2.59 yuan, 500 grams of yellow-fleshed potatoes for 0.99 yuan... In a moment, I bought 17 items, paying 56.49 yuan, and I'll pick them up tomorrow after 4 PM at the group leader's place 40 meters away.
Later, feeling it wasn't enough, I bought 6 more items, including chicken wing roots at 9.99 yuan/kg, beef at 22.5 yuan/jin, 20 eggs for 5.99 yuan, Shandong soft-skinned green peppers at 1.99 yuan/400g, and pork leg meat at 19.99 yuan/jin. This order totaled 87.51 yuan.
After placing the order, I suddenly remembered an article I'd read saying another giant subsidized even more heavily, so I opened that giant's app's community group buying channel. I saw that this one's yellow-fleshed potatoes were only 0.98 yuan per kilogram—2 jin of potatoes was 1 cent cheaper than the 1 jin I'd just bought from the other place. I'd bought 6 jin of potatoes from the previous one, thinking I was getting a bargain, but this giant was even more generous. I was too lazy to cancel that order and thought I'd try this one next time.
**-03-**
After buying, I marveled to my wife at the incredibly low prices of these community group buying goods. My wife said worriedly, "If everyone buys online, how will those small vendors who rely on selling vegetables survive? In the future, let's try to buy from the small vendors."
What my wife worries about is also what I worry about. On such a cold day, with wind and rain, those small vendors who push carts or squat in the open air selling vegetables, and those small business people who rent stalls in wet markets or rent storefronts to sell vegetables—their hard work from dawn to dusk, under the attack of internet giants' crazy subsidies, will it soon come to nothing?
These vegetable vendors are just fragile individuals with no risk tolerance. They have to go to the wet market before dawn to stock up, then sort and prepare the vegetables, and then wait for customers. Many vegetables that don't sell within a day or two have to be thrown away. And if regular customers are lured away by the subsidized goods of internet giants, these vendors won't be able to sell the vegetables they stocked based on past sales. After a few losses, they'll probably have to close up shop and find another way to make a living.
Find another way—but where is that way? If they had better options, they wouldn't be selling vegetables. Many of them have been selling vegetables for years, even half their lives. What else can they do?
I remember last month, a wet market in Wuhan required female vegetable vendors to be no older than 45 and male vendors no older than 50. In an interview, a man said, "I'm over 50, and the whole market is full of people this age." A 77-year-old grandmother with silver hair said she had been selling eggs at the wet market since she was 39 and continued to this day.
These are the most ordinary workers. Society should give them a way to earn an honest living. Their livelihoods cannot be arbitrarily taken away by capital. That egg-selling grandmother—will her eggs still sell in the face of the 20 eggs for 5.99 yuan subsidized by big capital?
**-04-**
A society should be diverse. The big should have their way of living, and the small should also have their way, just like the ocean: whales can live, and small fish, shrimp, even algae and single-celled organisms can also live. That's a healthy ecosystem. We can't let only whales survive and eliminate all the small creatures.
**What should big capital and big enterprises do in a society? Should they exhaust their strength to compete with the common people for profit?**
Is it development when big enterprises use their unmatched aggressiveness and immense capital to take away the small businesses that ordinary people rely on for a living? Is social progress and development just about all the money being earned by big capital, leaving helpless individuals mired in unemployment and poverty without hope?
Over the years, we've seen one giant after another create countless billionaires, seen the wealth of every rich person on the rich list climb year after year, seen billionaires with wealth rivaling nations lead their giant enterprises to extend their tentacles into every corner of society. Yes, these enterprises have created wealth and driven social progress, but have they also brought negative impacts and created social problems?
The internet has reached a bottleneck in technology. The marginal benefits it brings to society are rapidly diminishing, which also poses challenges to the development of internet companies themselves. They can no longer conquer territories and turn stone into gold as they did in the wild west era of the internet. They have to stoop down to do dirty, tiring, hard work, and when they stoop down, they collide head-on with the most basic livelihood issues.
**The most typical example is internet giants stooping down to sell vegetables.**
Logically, with such high technology and immense financial resources, internet giants should be doing big things related to the future of technology and the fate of humanity. Why are they rushing into these low-end industries? Don't they have any bigger ideals besides making money?
Of course, there are money-making opportunities in low-end livelihood industries, but these industries also support tens of millions of workers through traditional means. Like that egg-selling grandmother, she lives in a traditional way, which should be a beautiful thing. But the arrival of capital is destroying these beautiful things. Is this the good of capital, or the evil of capital?
**Capital and technology are tools for transforming the world, and their purpose should be to make the world better and people happier. Capital and technology cannot serve only the purpose of making money.**
Some might say that the internet improves the efficiency of information flow, greatly reduces information asymmetry, and enhances the efficiency of the entire society. Internet companies use internet technology to transform every traditional industry, improve efficiency, and eliminate backwardness. What's wrong with that?
There's nothing wrong with improving efficiency, but what is the purpose of efficiency improvement and resource integration? Isn't it to use current resources more efficiently to feed the current population? Isn't it to protect people's basic right to survival and development? Isn't it to build a more harmonious society?
**-05-**
I believe that the meaning of society's existence is to feed the people who live in it, not for some other lofty goal. Everything in society should serve people. A resource allocation method that allows everyone to live well in the current society is a good method.
Society should not abandon the majority of people to simply leap forward in productivity. The development of productive forces should serve human survival, and society should bring everyone along in development.
In our country with 1.4 billion people, where the social welfare system cannot yet guarantee everyone a dignified life solely on welfare, work is the best way for the vast majority to solve basic survival. Therefore, ensuring that the vast majority can obtain what they need for survival through work is the most basic livelihood requirement.
In other words, technological progress and efficiency improvement must be coordinated with the most basic livelihood needs. If the efficiency of production and circulation organization improves too quickly, allowing a small number of people to monopolize most of society's production and circulation through high technology, leaving the majority unable to participate in social production and with nothing to do, it will cause serious social problems.
Mass unemployment and lack of basic survival security for the unemployed have always been a flood that can throw any society into chaos or even collapse. A resource allocation method that allows the majority to live and work in peace may not be the most advanced or efficient, but it is certainly the most suitable.
Conversely, if there is a most efficient and advanced resource allocation method, but it deprives the majority of the opportunity to participate in labor, takes away their right to earn, and causes too many people to have no means of survival, then such a method is definitely not suitable for society, no matter how advanced and efficient it is. It cannot be adopted.
**In short, technological development and efficiency improvement must adapt to social development. If technology and efficiency are too far from the social reality, serious problems will arise.**
This is not a new principle; it is the survival logic that most countries, especially developing countries, have long adhered to.
Developing countries generally insist on cautious opening-up, not daring to introduce all foreign advanced technology and resource allocation models at once. They usually control the entry of foreign advanced products through high tariffs, import licenses, quotas, and other systems, and gradually introduce foreign advanced resource allocation methods through various restrictions. Generally, they first introduce manufacturing enterprises, then circulation enterprises, then financial service enterprises, etc. Our country is a model of cautious opening-up, and our success also benefits from it.
Why not open up all at once? Why not quickly embrace high technology and high efficiency?
Because so many people need to eat and survive. It is necessary to let society and the people gradually adapt and develop in coordination through gradual opening-up.
So now, internet companies using high-efficiency methods to transform various industries is similar to opening up to the outside world. The state must have regulations and must proceed gradually. The anti-monopoly penalties that developed countries often impose on big companies probably also have this consideration: the opportunities and benefits of society cannot be monopolized by a small number of people, because everyone needs to eat to live.
Those internet giants really should do more big things that benefit human development and the future. You have so many resources; if you don't do the big things, who will? As for the small matter of how to sell vegetables, you don't need to fight so hard. Leave some space for people's livelihoods, and you'll also be preserving your own future.
**-06-**
This afternoon, I took my son downstairs to play ball. While the child played with his friends, I visited two vegetable shops in the community. The newly opened shop is run by a middle-aged couple. When I entered, they were busy killing chickens, each holding one. The black-bone chickens had just been plucked, and they were using tweezers to remove remaining fine feathers. One jin of free-range chicken was 48 yuan. The small shop had many vegetables on the shelves.
Not long ago, I went out one night for business and came back at 3 AM. Entering the community, I saw this shop brightly lit. Through the glass, I saw the owner's wife picking vegetables. 3 AM!
In her shop, the lowest price for peppers was 6 yuan/jin, the highest 7.5 yuan/jin, and potatoes were 2.5 yuan/jin, not looking very good. I'd bought eggs there a few times before; they weren't cheap.
The other vegetable shop also had a lot of unsold vegetables, most looking not very fresh. Since there were no price tags, I only asked about the peppers—three or four kinds, all above 7 yuan/jin.
But the Shandong soft-skinned green peppers I bought today were only 1.99 yuan/400g, which comes to 2.49 yuan/jin. Potatoes on one platform were only 0.98 yuan/kg. In the face of big capital's crazy subsidies, small vendors are simply no match.
The wet market I used to frequent is a large indoor market. Initially, there were two large vegetable stalls facing each other with an aisle in between. The competition was fierce. I often bought from the couple's stall at the back. The couple was in their early thirties, very honest and good at business, with many vegetables cheaper than the opposite stall. Soon, the opposite stall closed down, leaving only this couple's vegetable stall in the market.
I hadn't been there for a long time. A few days ago, I went to buy vegetables and found it had changed dramatically. The owner had recruited a brand supermarket, and the couple's vegetable stall had been taken away. I walked further in and found the new vegetable stall was run by another couple, while the original vegetable seller was busy next to a meat stall. I asked if he had switched to selling meat. He smiled sheepishly and said the stall wasn't his; he was helping someone else. That means he had gone from being a small boss to a worker. With community group buying coming, will he even be able to keep his job as a worker?
**Our lives have never been as anxious as they are now. Society is changing so fast that we feel we might be abandoned at any moment. Are the peace of mind of a quiet life and the belief in hard work leading to wealth really crumbling day by day?**
Source: Growing Up in Essays (ID: lvshicai8)


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