> I hope they are not proud about it.
But like the parent post I have no shame or guilt in not paying for content. And I'm proud about being clever!
It may be a mentality, as I do think people are stupid to pay for a DRM ebook while libgen has it without DRM. But if it takes more than 2 minutes to find it, I buy it.
For ebooks, there are scribd, kindle, oreiley, and libraries. And to be honest, you probably won't read most of books you downloaded anyway. It is just a waste of your time in the end. At least if you buy it, you will only buy those you are going to read.
I'm not poor, far from it, yet I still use stremio to stream movies just as conveniently as netflix without paying a dime. It's wrong. There is no way to justify what I'm doing. Yet me and many other people both in America and in China use the app without the need for justification.
Don't think that the guilt you feel is something other people feel. I can assure you I feel nothing.
It's unfortunate, I recognize it's wrong, but at the same time... I don't actually care.
You can vote me down, but I'm being candid here. There are tons of people like me and most of them won't be candid about there apathy towards piracy, so this is a window into our mindset if you're a person who can't relate. If you want to make the world a better place you need to account for bad actors in any model because they can never be fully eliminated.
> It's unfortunate, I recognize it's wrong, but at the same time... I don't actually care.
Same for me!
Sure I may buy stuff if it's more convenient. But that's not the issue here. The issue here is that I and many others are capable of cheating and won't shy away from it if a viable opportunity presents itself. Same with pretty much a good chunk of people in China.
The cultural attitude I talk about dominates most of the culture in china. You walk into shenzhen not only is software pirated but entire phones, products and hardware is pirated and sold publicly. It's completely normal in china. Not to mention many people are proud of their own businesses.
Whatever your experience is I feel you're telling it from within some social strata that is largely different from the rest of china and this is only a minority opinion.
Like the author I say this in the most non judgmental way possible.
Look at the iPhone sales figure from Apple, and look at android sales numbers. And you are trying to suggest that "the rest of China" buys a counter fake iPhone? You are either dishonest or you know nothing about China.
Some are legit parts. Many are pirated. There's even android phones sold under the apple brand with a reskinned android OS. You 100% don't know what you're talking about at all. You want proof? Watch it:
https://youtu.be/e4wbFdePb-k?t=278
The more you watch the more educated you'll be.
>Look at the iPhone sales figure from Apple, and look at android sales numbers. And you are trying to suggest that "the rest of China" buys a counter fake iPhone? You are either dishonest or you know nothing about China.
Yes. Dude. In China they have entire factories that build counterfeit stuff.
>And the worst part of your story is that you attribute what you did to something not yours, so you don't have to take the responsibility of your own behavior. It is wrong.
This is where you're wrong. I never admitted or justified what I was doing as right or wrong. In fact I think it's wrong. I'm human and I'm not perfect. I'm very capable of doing things that are wrong. The difference between you and me is that I don't have to lie to myself about the reality of what I'm doing. I don't have to justify it to myself. It's wrong, but I do it regardless without lying to myself. There are moral lines I don't cross, but I'm no boy scout.
If you can't see that pirated goods are rampant in China than you're lying to yourself. Stop lying. Accept reality for what it is, don't let national pride blind you from the absolute truth.
I can assure you that thing is not hand made. It's coming out of a factory. Your anecdotal evidence pales in the face of visual evidence and information distributed by a wired documentary.
Whether you or your friends buy knock offs doesn't change the fact that a huge industry of cheaters exists.
I think you haven't been to the States. What you may consider "normal" is actually far off from what happens in the west. The western perspective on China: https://youtu.be/5ncOyYzOP3w?t=274
One industry I won't disagree with you is brands, clothing, Nike/Adidas for example. The problem is still affordability. The consumerism has educated people to value brands, and they will buy counterfeits when they cannot afford it.
I don't blame people buying counterfeits to be honest, people make financial decisions based on their circumstances, either setting a trust to avoid taxation, or a shell company, to buy some counterfeits product they cannot afford.
That documentary showed real knowledge on the ground. It literally filmed someone buying a knockoff from a mall that sold only knockoffs. Like come on, that’s as close to on the ground knowledge you can get. All I need you to do is explain where that knockoff in that video came from and why I see these knockoffs all over the place every time I go to Shenzhen.
The topic of this conversation is not about your disagreement with counterfeiting or not. I don’t care about whether you blame anyone or not.
The topic is about whether or not such an industry of cheaters exists in China. Your initial claim is that they don’t. My claim is that not only do they exist but they’re everywhere in China. The entire Chinese culture is all about scams and the people buying and selling pirated goods play a huge part in this culture.
And no, I disagree that Chinese culture is all about scams and buying/selling pirated goods. Business is the least part of Chinese culture, a Chinese billionaire would rather his children to be doctors or lawyers, business owners are not perceived the same as professionals. Yes, we do have a saying that 'all businessmen are corrupted', because its profit driven nature of business. We also believe building trust and relations is the only base you can build your business. Buying and selling pirated goods do exist, and they are not scams. As I said, it is a response to the consumerism world, it is good that you don't have to rob a store or steal money to buy the real thing. China is the biggest market for many foreign brands, it is a fact. Nike won't report profit from fake Nike shoes.
Anyway, thank you for making the effort to educate a Chinese about China and Chinese culture. Enjoy your day.
Of course a chinese billionaire will want their children to be doctors. Every chinese person wants that. But not every chinese person can be a billionaire let alone a doctor.
So what do these people do when they can't be rich like you? They cheat. They hustle. You ever heard of the lost generation? It's a generation of cheaters.
I'm chinese as well and I can tell you, it's pretty sad that I have to educate a chinese person about chinese culture.
The united States, like china, has many issues. But unlike china its citizens face these issues head on. Is there racism in the US? Yes. How does the US deal with racists? By protesting and criticizing them and demanding change. Are there economic issues in the US? Yes. And citizens deal with the issue by talking openly about it and discussing ways to move forward.
How does a chinese person deal with rampant cheating in their culture? By denying its existence. Not only do you deny its existence, but your government makes damn sure that you better deny it or face the consequences.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful.