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> my understanding of what a majority of the people inside China actually want. Do you really think that the majority of Chinese citizens use VPNs to bypass th

> my understanding of what a majority of the people inside China actually want. Do you really think that the majority of Chinese citizens use VPNs to bypass the firewall?

chrislomax 15y ago
If there was not a massive demand for this then the service would not exist. Also, if a lot of people were not doing it then they would not have rolled out software at ISP level to combat such a service. So I would say yes, a lot of people are using a VPN to bypass the firewall
- PakG1 15y ago
  The majority of people in China do not use the Internet. Many live in rural areas and are too poor to even have a computer, never mind the Internet. Internet penetration in China is actually only at 28.8%, though it's growing. http://www.google.ca/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=it_net_user_p2&idim=country:CHN&dl=en&hl=en&q=number+of+internet+users+in+china http://www.google.ca/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&#3... Given this data, it's impossible to say that the majority of people in China do not want the restriction. Rather, I'd say the majority of people in China do not care because they're not on the Internet anyway. And once they get on the Internet, do they care about Youtube? No, Tudou and Youku have free licensed streaming for anything they could care about, including now licensed stuff for Western movies and TV shows. Facebook? Everyone's on QQ. Twitter? They got weibo and it's growing gangbusters and is the only real outlet for political dissatisfaction; so it's immensely popular. Twitter clients and apps? Heck, everyone's making one for weibo. Some users want access to Facebook and the like, sure. But how many? Nobody really knows because that data is suspect when it is available. But even if nobody was interested, it's still such a huge market that even a small subset would create enough revenues for these companies to make a profit. That's why they exist. Because the market is so large anyway and it's low hanging fruit.
- piotrSikora 15y ago
  There is huge gap between "enough demand for a service" (few thousands) and "majority of China" (half a billion).

> my understanding of what a majority of the people inside China actually want. Do you really think that the majority of Chinese citizens use VPNs to bypass the firewall?

chrislomax 15y ago

If there was not a massive demand for this then the service would not exist. Also, if a lot of people were not doing it then they would not have rolled out software at ISP level to combat such a service. So I would say yes, a lot of people are using a VPN to bypass the firewall

PakG1 15y ago
The majority of people in China do not use the Internet. Many live in rural areas and are too poor to even have a computer, never mind the Internet. Internet penetration in China is actually only at 28.8%, though it's growing. http://www.google.ca/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=it_net_user_p2&idim=country:CHN&dl=en&hl=en&q=number+of+internet+users+in+china http://www.google.ca/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&#3... Given this data, it's impossible to say that the majority of people in China do not want the restriction. Rather, I'd say the majority of people in China do not care because they're not on the Internet anyway. And once they get on the Internet, do they care about Youtube? No, Tudou and Youku have free licensed streaming for anything they could care about, including now licensed stuff for Western movies and TV shows. Facebook? Everyone's on QQ. Twitter? They got weibo and it's growing gangbusters and is the only real outlet for political dissatisfaction; so it's immensely popular. Twitter clients and apps? Heck, everyone's making one for weibo. Some users want access to Facebook and the like, sure. But how many? Nobody really knows because that data is suspect when it is available. But even if nobody was interested, it's still such a huge market that even a small subset would create enough revenues for these companies to make a profit. That's why they exist. Because the market is so large anyway and it's low hanging fruit.
piotrSikora 15y ago
There is huge gap between "enough demand for a service" (few thousands) and "majority of China" (half a billion).