What you quoted is reality. People who care are in those two categories with rare exceptions. If you are actually russian like me you'd know that 95% of people are in two of the above groups I described. Literally everybody you ask either voted for Putin or did not vote (if we pretend elections were real)

And you I guess have no objection to my main point. e2ee helps crime as much as good guys, maybe more because it helps scale crime. And non stupid government would see that. If what a democratic government is doing to fix this looks like censorship, then it does not mean the government is bad. There is other context. A good democratic government can be instructed by competent experts make better tradeoffs. You cannot expect politicians to be competent experts.

It saddens me that every now and then even well intentioned(?) fellow russians act like every government is like that. You're not the only one. The legacy and history of how people came to power is completely different. Yes it's hard to believe but there are governments who are different.

If you want to see how actual surveillance would look, check out russia. Chinese firewall tech, TSPU boxes at every ISP, making VPN illegal etc. Unlike EU there is historical context and evidence in which it is clear that the government is not doing this to fight crime.

TSPU is just the consequence of a failed attempt to bring it under control, which happened much much earlier (no point in getting into detail here). And yes you're right, I actually have no objections to proportional response and keeping trust where it's possible, you can't get things done without it. Just keep in mind that "it cannot happen here" attitude is dangerous and you're always one step from what you've thought is impossible. Opposing to E2EE strikes me as similar to unified IDs in some European countries that are proud of safety and convenience it brings, dismissing the reality that they are now one regime change from the total control. (not even the unlikely change, considering that certain EU countries historically lean "right", for simplicity).

Sure. But also remember there is also a balance between hostile distrust for all things government does and getting things done. They cannot happen at the same time.

And remember authoritative governments don't care about trust and they get things done while west is squabbling.

To say gov does it to spy is not constructive. What can you do? If they are against you you lose, they hold all the power. This reminds me of attitude of most people in Russia. But to say government does it because it doesn't know is constructive. Because it (and the public) can be educated. There are democratic processes for this.