Author｜Wenser (@wenser2010)
The “Lobster Fever” stirred by OpenClaw has slightly subsided on major social media platforms. Just two days ago, Anthropic, the developer of Claude, directly issued a statement prohibiting “OpenClaw subscription-based free riding”. Consequently, some have proclaimed that “OpenClaw is already dead”.
In my opinion, against the backdrop where over 90% of the global population of 8 billion has yet to use an AI application, OpenClaw has already become a phenomenal AI product. Its popularity lasting a full three months is a testament to its sensational impact. On the other hand, for the majority of people in China, perhaps compared to OpenClaw, which has enormous token consumption, complex configuration processes, excessively high update frequency, and unclear security risks, Xianyu might be the “more localized OpenClaw”.
Some readers might be baffled at this point: Xianyu? That second-hand trading platform? What does it have to do with OpenClaw, the current darling of the AI field?
Let me explain in detail.
Before OpenClaw Gave AI Limbs, Xianyu Had Already Become the Transaction Engine for the Physical World
“If previous Chatbots gave AI a brain; then the value of OpenClaw lies in giving AI hands and feet for the first time.”
This statement emphasizes that OpenClaw enables AI Agents to possess various operational and execution capabilities, allowing them to perform tasks in the digital world on behalf of humans, and even to a certain extent, act upon the physical world.
However, the more immediate reality facing everyone is that compared to Chatbots where token consumption per conversation typically ranged from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands, OpenClaw has dramatically increased the scale of API calls and token usage by AI Agents to millions, tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions. Many have bluntly stated that since the emergence of OpenClaw, to ensure effectiveness, the daily token cost for using high-quality models like Claude, GPT, and Gemini can easily reach hundreds of US dollars.
For the same task, placing an order on Xianyu might cost less than one percent. Yes, you read that correctly. After entering the “Summer of the 21st Century,” the cost of human labor on the Xianyu platform has been compressed to its extreme. The time of the “poor” has also acquired its own unit of measurement and pricing system—an economic system operating on RMB and Xianyu Coins.
Every Trade Has Its Master: Travel & Hospitality, AI, Sales, Recruitment, Matchmaking
Xianyu frequently sparks waves of heated discussion. People jokingly refer to the incredibly versatile Xianyu platform as the “Chinese Dark Web”—on Xianyu, if you can think of it, it can be done.
Someone sold moldy oranges on Xianyu, which were immediately spotted by biology and medical students who wanted to extract the mold for research, offering to buy them for hundreds to thousands of RMB;
Someone “low-priced” a rare breed dog—the Belgian Wooden Dog—on Xianyu, describing it as a “spayed female dog”;
A battle-damaged second-hand iPhone is considered a relatively normal “small case” on Xianyu.
As for using Xianyu to book hotels, buy tickets, purchase low-cost AI subscription memberships, find temporary help, recruit staff, or even for matchmaking and blind dates, these are also part of the platform’s “daily business.”
With the unconventional creativity of Xianyu sellers, their “sources of goods” are also quite unconventional:
There are those who help others collect unpaid wages, deploying an 80-year-old grandmother in a wheelchair to the front lines—
Finding someone to help book hotel breakfast for as low as 5 RMB, only to later discover it was obtained by threatening to jump off a building—
Wanting to attend a music festival but failing to get a ticket, you think the scalper has connections to get you in, but instead he leads you through a dog hole—
The once-famous “Xianyu Air Ticket Refund Service” also sparked much discussion on social media platforms, with the underlying trick being “applying for a user’s death certificate”—
Want to buy low-priced scenic spot tickets? The Xianyu seller’s unconventional method is a phone call telling the scenic spot staff “this person is on their last legs”—
On this internet second-hand trading platform with over 200 million monthly active users, various niche market demands hidden in the capillaries of China’s internet market coexist with a diverse array of flexible supply. Thus, a consumer market parallel to mainstream e-commerce platforms and even offline shopping channels has, in less than 13 years, gradually expanded into today’s diverse trading universe, recording 217 million monthly active users in March, even surpassing Xiaohongshu.
As early as the beginning of 2024, its daily GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume) had already exceeded 1 billion RMB. Now, thanks to the “AI Camera Function” launched in early March, new listings on Xianyu surged by over 50 million, with more than 12 million users participating in the experience. Furthermore, industry forecasts indicate that China’s second-hand trading market size is expected to exceed 31 trillion RMB by 2026, with Xianyu playing a significant role.
The Premium Economics and Freedom-Power Theory Behind Xianyu: Leverage, Arbitrage, Collaboration, and Productivity
A unique survival strategy distinct from other e-commerce platforms has allowed Xianyu to rise to prominence and find its comfort zone during a period of stock competition in China’s internet user market.
Behind this current situation lies a similar logic to the rapidly advancing AI of recent years and OpenClaw, which topped GitHub’s star rankings this year. It harbors its own set of premium economics and freedom-power theory.
Last month, Justin Sun, founder of TRON, discussed this phenomenon:
Although some of the wording is quite extreme, the “premium theory” and “power theory” within it indeed reveal the unique value and market pricing system of Xianyu as a second-hand trading platform. Behind these terms, we can glimpse more reasons why Xianyu can be called the “Chinese Local OpenClaw”:
1. AI Limbs vs. Human and Material Leverage
If OpenClaw gave AI independent operational execution capabilities for the first time, then the value of Xianyu lies in enabling the flow, circulation, and value creation of human and material resources with an extremely low barrier to entry.
As the joke about the devaluation of academic qualifications goes: “For 3000 RMB, you might not even be able to buy a 5090 graphics card; but you can hire a college student to work for you.”
Whether it’s second-hand goods or cheap labor, the Xianyu platform subjects them to thorough market pricing and value quantification. In a two-sided market where supply far exceeds demand, Xianyu’s human and material resources are even more abundant than the AI models and token resources required by OpenClaw.
2. Token Arbitrage vs. Two-Sided Arbitrage
For countless human users, OpenClaw, with its 24/7 responsiveness and the ability to arbitrarily add Skill configuration files to expand its capabilities, is undoubtedly a “token arbitrage tool”—feeding the machine with the cheapest possible token raw materials, then producing specific content production materials based on one’s instructions. Although this has led to massive, exponential token consumption issues, it has still allowed countless people to experience the thrill of “mastering AI production means” and becoming “AI capitalists” for the first time.
The commodity resources and market demands on the Xianyu platform, however, represent a two-sided arbitrage based on buyers and sellers—leveraging low-cost entry barriers, low handling fees (Odaily Note: In June 2024, the Xianyu platform announced that starting September 1 of that year, it would charge all sellers a 0.6% basic software service fee, with a maximum of 60 RMB per transaction, including individual merchants), and the platform’s aggregated large-scale idle human resources to do business on the platform.
Moreover, similar to OpenClaw catering to both token providers and user consumers, Xianyu also satisfies the bilateral needs of product/service providers and market demanders, aligning with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
3. Lobster Collaboration vs. Human Collaboration
In terms of team collaboration, compared to OpenClaw’s “Lobster Army” or “AI Agent squads,” Xianyu also has its merits, namely, screening for professional “mercenaries” who meet different requirements, possess various abilities, and play different roles.
Similar to autonomous driving in the new energy vehicle sector, intent-centric engines highly praised in the kriptocurrency market, and self-driving, self-evolving, self-developing large language models in the AI field, Xianyu can also be seen as a “screening platform” for finding collaborative members.
Essentially, the puzzles formed by the technologies and personnel involved above are all the same thing. The ultimate goal of the user is to have what they think become what they seek, what they say become what they use, and what they see become what they get.
4. Information Productivity vs. Information Asymmetry Productivity
Strictly speaking, AI does not originally create information. Large language models and various AI Agents merely follow inference rules to combine, match, and call upon various information raw materials (including text, images, videos, and other multimodal content), ultimately outputting information products in different forms.
In contrast, humans can both absorb and learn information, produce various types of information, and create information asymmetry through various means to generate value. Service providers on Xianyu possess their own subjective judgment, self-screening, and self-motivation capabilities.
For overseas countries with high labor costs and accelerating population aging, AI Agent applications like OpenClaw and embodied intelligent robots might open a new “window for productivity development.” However, for China’s internet population, which has enjoyed past demographic dividends, resource dividends, and even manufacturing dividends, perhaps internet labor and commodity service provision platforms like Xianyu are a better solution. Just as Robin Li, founder of Baidu, once bluntly stated—when it comes to trading privacy for convenience, Chinese people have always been uninhibited. In the face of Xianyu, which efficiently extracts personal information from users in exchange for convenience, OpenClaw with its potential security risks is merely a small fry.
Facing the declining hype around AI Agents and OpenClaw, looking from another perspective, the biggest reason might be—
Xianyu, the OpenClaw more suitable for Chinese users.
Referensi:
Haven’t Lebahn on Xianyu for 3 Days, How Did It Become the Chinese Dark Web?!
The Chinese Version of the Dark Web Understands Exactly What Young People Want
Xianyu Doesn’t Want to Compare with Xiaohongshu Either, But It Really Has No Choice
Artikel ini bersumber dari internet: Xianyu, the OpenClaw Better Suited for Chinese Users
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