I found a great and also ironic quote that illustrates the reason I'm slowly switching to Yupoo, browsing more Chinese BBSs, etc. It's from James Fallows' excellent piece in the Atlantic Monthly on the Chinese national firewall

But according to Rebecca Mac­Kinnon, a former Beijing correspondent for CNN now at the Journalism and Media Studies Center of the University of Hong Kong, their readers won’t make the effort to cross the GFW and find them. “If you want to have traction in China, you have to be in China,” she told me.

If you want traction you need to get your hands dirty, you have to accept the risks. It's not easy to play the balance between outside and inside. I know only a few people who do it very well.

(I'm looking forward to seeing Mr Fallows at the Shanghai International Literary Festival next month.)