A while ago, Alibaba released a coding agent called Qoder, and suddenly a research report claimed its market share surpassed Claude Code. I immediately smelled something fishy: this thing barely has any users, so how did it suddenly become “number one”?
So I tried to find the original report, only to discover it was a paid research report that sells for an absurd price — effectively inaccessible. A benchmark report that you have to pay for isn’t really a benchmark at all, is it? At best it’s an advertisement. But since I had no proof back then, I didn’t think much of it.
Then today I saw another news story: Alibaba’s office agent is number one in the world. Wow. The same non-public paid report, the same synchronized media coverage — they didn’t even bother to change the headline. This time I don’t have to wonder — it’s an advertisement.
If your product were actually good, would you really need to go to all this trouble? A paid report here, some bought coverage there — all that fuss, and does it really let you rule the world? Big slogans everywhere, ads everywhere, and yet the product itself is a story best not gone into.
To be honest, Alibaba does make some good products. But this kind of baffling marketing, do they really think users are all fools… They’re happy to spend money on reports, though. If that money had gone into polishing their products instead, they might have made a few real “number one” products by now.
