[creatrixcordis]

I visited China for a month and my view is limited, but i do not think the average Chen in China cares about this, just like the average John in America doesn't. They are happy to be able to grow their personal GDP as much as they can. A lot of people there are part of the waves of the population that are provided incentives to relocate from rural areas to urban areas. Censorship is their least concern. They are happy to be able to have access to new products and start businesses and help their kids develop as best they can. Throughout my travels in other countries in Asia, i met a few students which will be going to Chinese universities. One of their reasons was that Chinese universities have bigger budgets for research compared to their respective countries. So that was highly attractive to them in their educational development. From walking around i got the impression that China inflates their GDP by constant construction and tear down and construction again. I am inclined to believe that this happens also in the tech industry. This churn creates jobs, companies in a loop and makes the economy look stronger that it actually is. I also saw many empty apartments and was told about this as well. Imagine how much money China would loose if people would solely use western alternatives of the apps they currently use. This GDP churn they have going there could not be done if your population is using solely western products. I do think there is an economic reason as well. I happen to like WeChat, you can do many things with it. I watched this dude i met there buy a hat from a street vendor and payed her with the app, super easy. The convenience that is baked in that app is awesome. I wish we had something like that in the US.

[mads]

I lived in China for many years and you are right. Most Chinese people reaction will be "Meh.." and they will move on with their life and just use a VPN if they really really need WhatsApp.

A lot of western people are now probably frantic to get the WeChat addresses of the Chinese people they only had on WhatsApp, so they can ensure their production line or development people are on track.

We need them more than they need us. That is the problem.

[seanmcdirmid]

I lived in China for 9 years and could never find a working VPN that would last more than a month. So I just didn't bother using anything outside of work. It was ironic that I worked for Microsoft, would use Bing at home, and used Google at work because...I could.

> We need them more than they need us. That is the problem.

Disagree. They still want our business, they will find ways to make it through the disruption. China is not ready to close itself from the rest of the world economically.

[usaar333]

Did you ever use Shadowsocks in lieu of a VPN? AFAIK, it suffers no traffic disruption (worked great for me when I connected to either my own US-based house or an AWS server in Japan)

[the_common_man]

> We need them more than they need us. That is the problem.

Actually the problem is that the west has no higher moral ground than the east. Not a single US person here uses a chinese app or plans to use one. There is a reason for this.

[seanmcdirmid]

There is no moral high ground period. People who talk about moral high ground are usually just insecure and/or looking to save face.

US people don't use Chinese apps because they are not competitive and solve problems that are China-specific. Heck, its just not US people, but Taiwan people, Hong Kong people, Singapore people, Japanese people, Korean people, Myanmar people, Cambodia people, etc...

There is a reason for this.