[Markoff]

are you sure you are not ABC (judging by nickname) who lived in China less than me and it's just here supporting their totalitarian government based on fantasies you read about China online without clue about real life in China? Because that's the case of ABCs, they know less about China than non-Chinese living there...

not sure what is not civil about my comments, I lived in China, I talk about Chinese app mentioned in article and provide what is behind real success of WeChat, which is not thanks to features they have, but thanks to government protection

[dang]

You clearly know more about China than I do. My concern (I'm a moderator here) is merely that you share this knowledge in a way that respects the community guidelines. If you read the pages I linked you to, it isn't hard to see how your comment violated the spirit of this site.

Inflammatory comments on divisive topics are destructive of what we care about on HN. So as a topic gets more divisive, comments need to get more civil and substantive.

[eratins]

So you are one of those bitter expats then (judging by your comments)?

[Markoff]

It's hard to not be bitter, if you live in China for years as adult person and not some student enjoying parties and iresponsible youth years. The amount of ridiculous stuff you have to deal with every day (incompetent Chinese management in companies, unproductive Chinese coworkers, people blocking sidewalks and in general extremely selfish people anywhere you look, overcrowded subway, fighting to get to suburban bus and constant flow of people cutting the queue, toxic air, toxic food, dangerous roads, visa harassment, etc. etc.) is just unbearable after some time and eventually everyone will move away. It's not exactly country welcoming foreigners, which would explain why they have like 0.5% of population consisting of foreigners, now tell me other country with comparable population of foreigners.

But yeah, most of HN readers saw China only online and see how is it booming and stuff like that. Like look at amazing Beijing subway with many new modern nice and dandy lines, somehow everyone fail to see they are still at 50% level compared to any western city (in west you have roughly one line per 500K served population, in amazing Beijing 1mil sharing one line with no suburban trains or trams to supplement it). Same goes for their amazing HSR - omit the fact they stole German and Japanese technology, omit the fact their prices are more expensive than faster and more convenient flying in Europe and that they closed most of cheaper slower lines, so end result for people is to pay significantly more to get home.

Chinese gov propaganda department must be smiling reading comments on this website.