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We need a Manhattan project to penetrate China's firewall

2 points by ipalileo 6y ago

There's a massive opportunity to access China's population by penetrating their great firewall - how can the US / a start up go about this?

hilbert42 6y ago
Why on earth would want to do this for? (They don't want it and most of us aren't interested anyway.)
- ipalileo 6y ago
  for the challenge and for the opportunity - i disagree that all of china wants to remain censored and i think there's enough creators and hackers in the world interested to direct access to the chinese market.
  - yorwba 6y ago
    People who want to circumvent the Great Firewall already have the option to buy a VPN subscription. Not everyone can afford that, but those people are also the least likely to benefit from access to anything blocked. Creators and hackers can already get direct access to the Chinese market by registering a new domain. The hardest part would be gaining traction when you know so little about your target market you need to ask on HN, and then somehow making money off your users. If you register a legal entity in China, you can just collect payment in yuan, but then you're bound by local laws and regulations, of course.
    - ipalileo 6y ago
      the friction of using vpn is too high and the challenge is coming up with a solution that has a lower barrier to entry. if youtube, google, twitter, facebook etc. can directly access the chinese market, their local counterparts will not survive and that's a massive opportunity.
      - yorwba 6y ago
        > the friction of using vpn is too high The friction of using VPN is not much higher than getting an internet connection in the first place: some initial setup and then keep paying for your subscription. > if youtube, google, twitter, facebook etc. can directly access the chinese market, their local counterparts will not survive That's assuming those services are obviously better, so that people will switch. Otherwise, everyone will keep using what they're familiar with. YouTube is freely available in Japan, but that hasn't killed Niconico. WhatsApp is freely available in Korea, but KakaoTalk remains king. Bing is freely available in China (albeit censored) but half a dozen Chinese search engines keep sticking around. The globally dominant tech companies got where they are today by being the fastest to introduce users to a novel product, but there are plenty of local markets where a competitor was faster. Now that those products aren't revolutionary anymore, there won't be any rapid changes in market share, only slow shifts. (Consider Chrome vs. Firefox: Chrome has more users, but Firefox is only declining very slowly.)
        ipalileo 6y ago
        > The friction of using VPN is not much higher than getting an internet connection in the first place: some initial setup and then keep paying for your subscription fees are the most expensive friction point on the internet > That's assuming those services are obviously better, so that people will switch. Otherwise, everyone will keep using what they're familiar with. agreed and sadly we'll never know because the CCP is censoring the ability to compete.

2 points by ipalileo 6y ago

There's a massive opportunity to access China's population by penetrating their great firewall - how can the US / a start up go about this?

hilbert42 6y ago

Why on earth would want to do this for? (They don't want it and most of us aren't interested anyway.)

ipalileo 6y ago
for the challenge and for the opportunity - i disagree that all of china wants to remain censored and i think there's enough creators and hackers in the world interested to direct access to the chinese market.
- yorwba 6y ago
  People who want to circumvent the Great Firewall already have the option to buy a VPN subscription. Not everyone can afford that, but those people are also the least likely to benefit from access to anything blocked. Creators and hackers can already get direct access to the Chinese market by registering a new domain. The hardest part would be gaining traction when you know so little about your target market you need to ask on HN, and then somehow making money off your users. If you register a legal entity in China, you can just collect payment in yuan, but then you're bound by local laws and regulations, of course.
  - ipalileo 6y ago
    the friction of using vpn is too high and the challenge is coming up with a solution that has a lower barrier to entry. if youtube, google, twitter, facebook etc. can directly access the chinese market, their local counterparts will not survive and that's a massive opportunity.
    - yorwba 6y ago
      > the friction of using vpn is too high The friction of using VPN is not much higher than getting an internet connection in the first place: some initial setup and then keep paying for your subscription. > if youtube, google, twitter, facebook etc. can directly access the chinese market, their local counterparts will not survive That's assuming those services are obviously better, so that people will switch. Otherwise, everyone will keep using what they're familiar with. YouTube is freely available in Japan, but that hasn't killed Niconico. WhatsApp is freely available in Korea, but KakaoTalk remains king. Bing is freely available in China (albeit censored) but half a dozen Chinese search engines keep sticking around. The globally dominant tech companies got where they are today by being the fastest to introduce users to a novel product, but there are plenty of local markets where a competitor was faster. Now that those products aren't revolutionary anymore, there won't be any rapid changes in market share, only slow shifts. (Consider Chrome vs. Firefox: Chrome has more users, but Firefox is only declining very slowly.)
      - ipalileo 6y ago
        > The friction of using VPN is not much higher than getting an internet connection in the first place: some initial setup and then keep paying for your subscription fees are the most expensive friction point on the internet > That's assuming those services are obviously better, so that people will switch. Otherwise, everyone will keep using what they're familiar with. agreed and sadly we'll never know because the CCP is censoring the ability to compete.