You are aware that most people know perfectly well how to use VPNs?

Well, the Great Firewall recognizes VPN packets and can decide to drop them, so you might not even be able to complete a login with the VPN server...

Perhaps it can, but it doesn't. Lot of people use VPNs in China.

"It depends". Last year in September they had the 70th anniversary of Communist Rule, and a few weeks before that connecting to VPN was a pain. For some reason there's also less restrictions e.g. if you're close to an airport, WhatsApp would work.

> breaking the great firewall would do wonders in encouraging Chinese citizens to stand up for themselves.

Not too sure. There are obvious fake negative news about China and racism comments from Fox News/YouTube. For Chinese people, it’ll be quite a mixed feeling to see toxic content on China, e.g. Wuhan virus, China must pay, etc. I’d say those content might come first to hurt their feelings.

As a native Chinese, it’s still emotionally tough for me to browse China related topic even on HN which is a much more principled forum. Let alone other media

Regardless of what Elon Musk does, very few SpaceX Starlink ground terminals will ever make it into China. Dissidents might smuggle in a few but that isn't going to crack open the Great Firewall on any widespread basis.

I’m taking part in this discussion from inside China. I teach 16 year olds who have Astrill subscriptions (It’s a VPN). The point of the GFW isn’t to stop information getting in or out. It’s to maintain control over what gets discussed and to ensure that all Chinese language cultural interchange of any importance is controlled by the CPC.

Yea you are probably right. But it makes it so that the CCP can’t actively control the ISP directly. Perhaps people will hack together ground terminals or something? Where there is a will, there is a way. In any event, just standing up to China and telling them that we won’t block out service to those who can access it is better than nothing.