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Thriving may be a bit strong - These are small potatoes compared to apple, sure, but these are tech obsessed people buying privacy orientated products. Librem

Thriving may be a bit strong - These are small potatoes compared to apple, sure, but these are tech obsessed people buying privacy orientated products. Librem 5 raised over $2.1 million https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/10/purism-librem-5-crowdfunding-ends-raised-2-million https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/10/purism-librem-5-crowdfun... The VPN market is measured in the billions. https://www.statista.com/statistics/542817/worldwide-virtual-private-network-market/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/542817/worldwide-virtual... People spend money in this area. The privacy orientated crowd is willing to put their money where their mouth is. Please keep orientating products towards it. edit: sorry, for some reason I'm unable to reply to the comment below. Purism raised 2.1 million pre-selling their the librem 5, not in shares or anything.

scarface74 7y ago
Needing to raise money kind of means they aren’t profitable. As far as the “VPN market” according to the link, they are mostly referring to businesses using VPNs in the enterprise not individual users.
- toper-centage 7y ago
  Needing to raise money means they don't have the luxury of volume to produce any product and that it is a risky business. Having raised the money, though, is proof that they are indeed profitable.
  - jakelazaroff 7y ago
    Unless I misunderstand you, this is not correct. Uber, for example, has raised billions of dollars and has never made so much as a cent of profit.
godzillabrennus 7y ago
There are enough sponsored videos on YouTube tech channels by vpn providers that I think it’s safe to concede individuals are paying for those services. The other products and services mentioned don’t seem to be prospering the same way.
- scarface74 7y ago
  There were also ads for Pets.com....
- RandallBrown 7y ago
  Are most people using VPNs for privacy? Every individual I know that pays for one does it so they can watch TV in a different country or something similar. There's also lots of businesses that use them for accessing internal networks externally. I've never met anyone in real life that is using one for privacy reasons.
  - bravoetch 7y ago
    Using a VPN to watch TV in another country is a privacy reason.
    - mdorazio 7y ago
      The end result might be privacy, but the demand is for bypassing content blocking. Your average user of a VPN doesn't care if it prevents people from identifying them, all they care about is if it lets them watch The Office from wherever they are.
      - a1369209993 7y ago
        Well, you could argue about whether it counts as privacy per se, but: a, they don't care to ensure that no one can identify them; b, they very much do care that it prevents whatever server they're getting The Office from from identifying them.
Wowfunhappy 7y ago
You need to wait a bit for the reply button to appear. The site has a delay to prevent discussions from getting too heated. (The delay increases the deeper a comment thread gets.)
- doyoulikeworms 7y ago
  Woah, that's a really thoughtful feature. Is there somewhere I can find all of the, like, rules of HN similar to this one?
  - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
    Sadly, I don't think so. The best source I know of is https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented, but it's missing a lot of stuff like that bit about the reply button. I learned about the reply button because I too was once wondering why it sometimes doesn't appear, and I Googled it.

scarface74 7y ago

Needing to raise money kind of means they aren’t profitable. As far as the “VPN market” according to the link, they are mostly referring to businesses using VPNs in the enterprise not individual users.

toper-centage 7y ago
Needing to raise money means they don't have the luxury of volume to produce any product and that it is a risky business. Having raised the money, though, is proof that they are indeed profitable.
- jakelazaroff 7y ago
  Unless I misunderstand you, this is not correct. Uber, for example, has raised billions of dollars and has never made so much as a cent of profit.

godzillabrennus 7y ago

There are enough sponsored videos on YouTube tech channels by vpn providers that I think it’s safe to concede individuals are paying for those services. The other products and services mentioned don’t seem to be prospering the same way.

scarface74 7y ago
There were also ads for Pets.com....
RandallBrown 7y ago
Are most people using VPNs for privacy? Every individual I know that pays for one does it so they can watch TV in a different country or something similar. There's also lots of businesses that use them for accessing internal networks externally. I've never met anyone in real life that is using one for privacy reasons.
- bravoetch 7y ago
  Using a VPN to watch TV in another country is a privacy reason.
  - mdorazio 7y ago
    The end result might be privacy, but the demand is for bypassing content blocking. Your average user of a VPN doesn't care if it prevents people from identifying them, all they care about is if it lets them watch The Office from wherever they are.
    - a1369209993 7y ago
      Well, you could argue about whether it counts as privacy per se, but: a, they don't care to ensure that no one can identify them; b, they very much do care that it prevents whatever server they're getting The Office from from identifying them.

Wowfunhappy 7y ago

You need to wait a bit for the reply button to appear. The site has a delay to prevent discussions from getting too heated. (The delay increases the deeper a comment thread gets.)

doyoulikeworms 7y ago
Woah, that's a really thoughtful feature. Is there somewhere I can find all of the, like, rules of HN similar to this one?
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  Sadly, I don't think so. The best source I know of is https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented, but it's missing a lot of stuff like that bit about the reply button. I learned about the reply button because I too was once wondering why it sometimes doesn't appear, and I Googled it.