I'm also in China and rely heavily on VPNs. Some points on that: Sometimes I use a VPN not because I'm trying to get to a banned site, but because of general f

I'm also in China and rely heavily on VPNs. Some points on that: Sometimes I use a VPN not because I'm trying to get to a banned site, but because of general flakiness when using unblocked sites they'd have no reason to screw with. Seems to be some combination of innocuous reasons (CDN/peering issues, bad routers, unusual race conditions in client-side code caused by my weird network) and deliberate throttling. Under VPN, these issues go away. It seems many people I know (even non non-expats) use VPNs and have accounts on Facebook, Instagram, etc. However, it's a tad inconvenient. Even though I have a VPN one click away, often times I'll opt for a Chinese site/tool to save hassle. Exactly the intended result of these policies!