China’s tech industry has blossomed and grown exponentially in the past decade. But the thing that all those sites are based on, the very medium of conveyance itself – the internet – has got a lot worse in that time. Here’s my personal take on living with the web in China.
1. When YouTube first launched and it was fast and uncensored in China
That was back before overseas websites started to get ‘throttled’ and slowed down.
2. When my favorite social network, Twitter, got blocked in June 2009
And it remain blocked.
3. So that’s when I discovered the awesomeness that is a pro VPN service
It’s magical!®
4. Already paying for that VPN, this is how I feel topping-up my credit at China Telecom
And it’s not that cheap.
5. When a Chinese website has a floating advert that ricochets off the corners of the browser
6. When I post something on Weibo that’s full of sensitive words and is probably going to be censored
7. When Google launches something new and I’m counting down the minutes to it getting blocked in China
8. When the internet gets even slower
9. What crosses my mind when another site or web service gets blocked
10. When everyone was telling me to use WeChat when it first started gaining serious traction in 2012
11. Then I started weighing up whether WeChat was safe to use
12. But then I joined WeChat and was like…
13. Now that everyone’s using WeChat, this is how Weibo feels
14. There are upsides to the Chinese web, of course. Such as legally watching US or British TV shows for free on local video-streaming sites
15. And avoiding paying for Spotify by using Xiami for free
Bonus GIF: Using the web in China is tough. There are some good points, though it’s mostly a lot of hassle. But, hey, what are you going to do? You either laugh or you cry
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