in china, google services have been blocked by the gfw for some time now, after a few months of requiring vpn just to access gmail and websites, i decided to sw

in china, google services have been blocked by the gfw for some time now, after a few months of requiring vpn just to access gmail and websites, i decided to switch to other products, for example, outlook.com for email. in china, life is fine without google, i use baidu maps, youku/iqiyi video, outlook.com for email, i'm already using an iphone so the lack of a play store is irrelevant. i imagine this would be worse for places where there aren't local solutions where google is the best or only solution for things like maps.