and yeah the printing press has made them less frequent. not down to 0% just that since then empires have lasted longer. But that was of course not as perfect as current technology, made it a bit harder to censor, someone might use a printing press to print factual pamphlets and they spread. They'd burn books but it was a bit harder to find them to burn them than on the internet. Of course they would prefer to control the source and control who owned printing presses. In some places it was made illegal and books were held in private collections. Nowadays it seems the printed word is dying out, people don't read physical books anymore. I have a lot of great ones on my shelf. Certain websites get deleted, youtube videos hidden, certain writers or philosophers get cancelled. At least I still have the books. USA might have already collapsed if the internet was never invented. The 60s were a time of a lot of strife. Media was controlled by CIA at least by the 70s. There were a lot of movements though. I know people protest today but they're really just having an excuse to party and loot. Old boomers from the 60s and 70s are the only ones really protesting it seems to me.

Hard for me to say what life is like in China, how many really use a VPN there, out of a billion plus people I'm guessing not that many. I agree their middle class is important to them, I think their leadership just mainly doesn't want them graduating from middle to upper class and threatening their status. The middle class is like the outer party of 1984, a buffer between the elites and the proles. Some sort of middle class is probably always going to be allowed but they don't want it getting delusions of grandeur.