Welcome to "The Outwrite Podcast". This article is published on www.theoutwrite.com by Varun Singh Rajput.

Notion is an all-in-one space workspace platform that claims to replace other major players in the game, for example, Google Docs, Quip, Jira, Evernote, GitHub Wiki, Trello, Dropbox Paper etc. It was founded in 2013 under Notion Labs based in San Francisco, United States.

I’ve been using Notion for a very long time, and in the first few weeks, I could sense they know the game pretty well and its no joke for them. The platform has been designed in a meticulous manner, keeping all the needs in check – every other day they incorporate some kind of improvement or new feature.

25th May’20 5:53 am, I stumbled upon a tweet “Notion is blocked by a firewall in China. We are monitoring the situation and will continue to post updates.” @NotionStatus account. It’s an official status account for Notion, hence I had no intention to ignore it. I decided to wait for another update as it could due to some unknown reasons, doesn’t have to be what I think it is. China is well known for forcing its regulations on all tech firms.

As reported by TechCrunch, “Just before its ban in China, Notion surged on May 21 to become the most-downloaded productivity app in the domestic Android stores.” The claim is based on the data provided by a third party app Annie. The COVID-19 pandemic has created a whole new need for work collaboration platforms like Evernote, Notion etc. A rise of Notion popularity among China workforce and developers would have attracted eyeballs of their diplomats to push the regulation or initiating the block.

The Chinese Government doesn’t allow outside firms especially US tech companies, to gain an edge in their market, no matter what policy, censorship or regulation they have to come up with. It may be great to secure their domestic market and ensure survival – but in most cases, it comes as an unfair deal for foreign investor or companies. There are some of the major US-based out tech firms blocked in China,

and the list just never ends. We see one or another name getting added to this long list every year, now Notion is another US-based start-up hit by China censorship. The cold war between China and the US has a huge impact on the global business market, especially for US start-up to gain access to the Chinese market. In the case of Notion, we expect to have some transparency as to why it was blocked? and It would be great if the access can be restored by the China government.

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