This is typical HN mentality to assume that other people are comparatively well versed in technical aspects. 99% indians (may be a little exaggerated figure) don't have any clue about VPN. Most don't even know how to side-install any app. So government actions do have some significance.
There is no need to side-install; just go on the play store and search for some bullshit spam phrase like 'unblock pubg' and you'll get your pick of dozens if not more of ad-filled, malicious "VPN" that does MITM and ad injection into all pages.
You'll literally get thousands of results of spam apps just directly named "VPN FOR PUBG" or "VPN UN BLOCK PUBG GROUNDS BATTLE PLAYER GAME CALL OF DUTY SPONGEBOB ESPONJA BOB", all of which are malware.
I just checked for myself, and this is pretty much how it is. The publishers behind this garbage have hundreds of uploaded apps, all of which are effectively the same one but with different names like "UNBLOCK P U B G PAKISTAN" or "VPN FOR PUBG PLAYER FORT NIGHT", and a random one loaded virtually every single data-exfiltration SDK known to man, and several known to animals.
My aunt and mother use a bunch of websites I've never heard of for free streaming of movies and TV shows. They may not be the most informed about potential hidden costs of these services, but they are definitely resourceful in finding them. I think you overestimate the difficulty of using technology. All you need to do is learn to type "How do I get $web_service for free?" in the search bar.
I don’t think that 99% is correct. I know my brother who never used a computer knows how to share apps without internet and play store. They install apps using shareit like apps.
I know people who use VPN, but can't reinstall windows. Using VPN today is so simple, people do that without even knowing that they do. For them, it's: "I installed this thingy and now I can watch Hulu" and not "I install VPN to route my traffic via other country in order to by-pass national firewall"
I wonder how much of that is a networking effect. If you met an Iranian woman outside of Iran, the chances they had the money to travel or have a connected family is higher.
I think the government nets capture lots of people. Anyone who is trying to avoid it can but those groups tend to be middle class or higher. So maybe instead of 99% it's like 51%?
She was probably one of the most driven women I've ever seen. I had immense respect for her.
She hadn't been back to see her family for 10 years for fear of not being able to come back due to not having her green card yet. She finally got it and we were all super happy for her.
What you're saying might be true, I never got a good sense of how rich or poor her family was, but she was always studying, always trying to be better. It was a very sharp contrast to most/all Americans I know.
She came to this country through drive rather than money, of that I have no doubt.
and neither are comparable to china, and yet the overarching idea, that strong government restrictions on the populace could drive said populace to be better educated in the use of ways around those restrictions still holds for all three.
You can say the same about Facebook and Google in China...You can sideload or use VPN. Some do. Most don't. Blocking FB & Google ecosystems allowed for China to grow their own competitors.
China has invested into its Great Firewall, which is far, far better than the techniques most ISPs here use to block websites. Besides, VPNs aren't banned, and the government isn't cracking down on generic VPNs. It's far easier to get a VPN in India to browse TikTok than it is to get a VPN in China to browse Facebook. You can even see it in the list of apps that were banned - there's two literally called "VPN for TikTok".
The thing is, there's hardly anything outside GFW that an average Chinese would want, local alternatives often are feature rich and considered "more advanced", outside news are dismissed as "obscenely fake and hostile".
In the few Chinese that do pay for VPNs, most women use it to access Instagram for celebrities, most men for porn on Twitter.
Exactly. People are missing the point that bringing in new customers is a lot harder if you have to go through a number of additional loops to install an app and even find out about it. Local rivals have a massive leg up. Over time, once local rivals develop and they are easily accessible and feature rich, then people will stop using the Chinese apps. Just look at the latest YC batch which was full of Indian startups.
Facebook Messenger also "wasn't even started till 2011". Before 2011 China had very mature local messaging (QQ, from the company behind WeChat) and less mature but burgeoning social networking (loads of them I believe, including part of QQ). Cherry-picking the date of one next-gen product that later took over is meaningless.
Hmm...per Wikipedia the original Facebook chat was started in 2008. Facebook Messenger for mobile was 2011. QQ didn't have their mobile version till 2013.
Facebook cannibalized social networks in the US and homegrown networks abroad. Though we'd never know, I'd believe they would have done the same in China.
The ones who will use a VPN to access stuff, are generally of above average IQ, who are less susceptible to propaganda. Not entirely immune, but less susceptible.
Leaving that aside, bans have a very real impact, even if there are other channels to access banned content. You cannot advertise banned content, you cannot distribute it en-masse, you cannot hold competitions, etc, etc. All these have massive effects on the marketing and sales channels.
Sure, some %age of people will use it from VPNs and stuff, but those are few and far between.
In case of online games, people may simply move to other games like Fortnite or what not.
I know tech-savvy software developers of mine, who hardly side load apps. Why? Side loading apps when a secure and curated app store is available is generally avoided due to security and other issues.
In India, with every smartphone having digital payment apps, and the prevalence of scams and frauds, most middle class, urban teens and adults will generally avoid side loading apps. You can safely assume that many in rural areas, are not even aware of side loading stuff.
China is taking digital addiction very seriously. They have taken strong measures. Some of them are well positioned and others are pure authoritarian. I expect India to follow soon though I have little hope for good long term policies. I expect them to be reactionary and punitive.
People fear education here. I think about why and can only come with few theories.
Always wondered about these Free VPNs, how are they free? Are they actually free? Is that why you used "Free" in quotes? Must be a valid model behind it since the bandwith must be insane.
Google and Facebook sell access to you on thru their ads. The advertiser doesn't get your information. The free VPNs are probably selling your information, browsing history, and anything else they can get on you.
I do not think a typical Indian farmer would own anything close to 2000 acres of land. Most farming in India is not mechanised but is instead highly dependent on human labour. From what I know a typical farmer would probably own only a couple of acres of land (many in single digits? anecdata with no citation) which is cultivated by their family subject to further fragmentation when inherited by the next generation.
The majority of Desktop browsers support extensions that provide support for dark mode. On mobile I know Android Chrome (via chrome://flags) and Firefox (via extensions) support dark mode. Don't know about Safari and other mobile browsers but I feel that overall there are plenty of options for dark mode on HN without a separate site specific implementation.
I also have noticed that I never use the site specific Dark mode implementations as it is a lot more convenient to globally enable dark mode (at night) rather than playing around with toggles for every website that supports it.
I use this link which will open in WhatsApp by default to send a WhatsApp message to someone who is not in my Contacts and don't want to add to my Contacts just to send a WhatsApp message.
It will be a pain in the arse to use for all your contacts and probably not worth the effort as if you use WhatsApp regularly (for an Indian there's no way around it) you will have sent a message to almost everyone on your contact list at least once and Facebook will know about it rendering the whole thing pointless.
I don't have much of an idea about Windows or OSX. Regarding Desktop Linux, I think I wouldn't be far off if I said it has no desktop security model. The permission system on *nixes (and Linux by inheritance) were formulated in the context of it being a multi-user system with multiple people logging in via a terminal. Your data had to be protected from access by unauthorized users. I don't know if security aspects of running untrusted or unverified programs was even considered which are significantly more important in the current context.
I think Flatpak is trying to improve Linux application security but still has a really long way to go compared to the likes of Android and iOS.
Due to the planned obsolescence (via stoppage of security updates) of Android phones within 2 years I had been seriously been considering buying an iPhone SE2.
But I can't really justify myself buying it at the hefty price tag of $555 in India. (The extra $155 being added due to the high custom duties on imports in India.)
Salaries (at least for software developers) here being 1/4th of that of US developer salaries or lesser makes even the $400 price in US not quite easy to digest.
It seems I will be stuck with buying an Android One phone instead.
Whenever the COVID-19 travel bans are eased in different countries, you could ask someone to get it for you from the US (if you know someone, which may be an impediment). This phone is also sold in the US in an unlocked variant that can be used with any carrier.
Firefox.
When I first got to use a Computer to surf the internet I remember using Firefox and that is what I have used ever since.
A lot of people here have said that Firefox was a slow and bloated mess pre-Quantum. I suppose I stuck to Firefox when most people shifted over to Chome because my internet connection had been slow enough that internet was unusable without javascript and images disabled (this is no viable as a significant proportion of websites don't work without JS). Hence my browser ran pretty light and never gave me any issues.
At work for development I now use Chrome (for devtools) as Firefox still chokes up on really large javascript files. For anything else Firefox remains my default as it is comparable to chrome now in terms of performance (this only means I haven't noticed any noticeable difference for my web browsing workloads) and has a lot of features that I like (containers, customisability,...).
edit: The above refers to my choice of browser on Desktop.
I feel this is a problem in the majority of Indian cities. Perhaps Mumbai stands out here as it has more Traffic hence greater levels of unnecessary honking.
Having worked at Bangalore and Hyderabad, living along/nearby any road with regular traffic lead to poor sleep quality due to sound pollution from senseless honking. Poorly enforced regulations regarding the hours when construction is allowed don't help either.
That never frustrated me as much. Somehow I find the actions of animals more excusable than the rationalizations provided for man made noise pollution.
Perhaps a bit tangential to OP's question, but in a similar thread on HN in the past someone had posted that you will probably be more successful if you try to fit in your hobbies/ side projects (tech or not tech related) before you start your workday as you will be less tired and more fresh.
I sort of agree with this as when I come back from work I often find myself lacking the willpower to do anything more than skim HN, reddit or watch something on youtube and then sleep.
I've found myself to be more productive if I get some time in the morning before I go to work.
Most people own Android phones where they can sideload apps downloaded from some third party APK website (of questionable trustworthiness)
iPhones have negligible penetration in India so are not even a part of the equation.