3 ms·

I am surprised at how much money exists in the VPN industry. Whenever I watch even a mildly-popular YouTube video, it always has an advertisement for the lates

I am surprised at how much money exists in the VPN industry. Whenever I watch even a mildly-popular YouTube video, it always has an advertisement for the latest VPN provider. As far as I can tell, there is only one reason there is this much money in the field -- to subscribe to US-based video streaming services from outside the US. But they never ever say that that's the reason, they always say things like "work from home securely" or "avoid being tracked". But, of course, your IT department already has a secure VPN for working from home, and that Facebook cookie works regardless of what your IP address is. In general, the sell of "you can't trust your network provider, so pay for an additional network provider that doesn't keep logs and only accepts payment in Bitcoins," doesn't seem particularly strong to me. Of course you can't trust the network layer. Nobody trusts the network layer. That is why we have TLS. (Anyone remember "wired equivalent privacy" when WiFi was a cool and new thing? Turns out wires don't offer much privacy.) So why people are buying this service confuses me. I am also confused at why people can run these services so cheaply. I looked into doing it myself (I had some ideas for actual value add), and the economics didn't seem that good. There is a lot of software between "ifup wg0" and "collect money from people that want a VPN". It seems expensive to write all that, unless a "yolo" strategy of starting up openvpn and setting up a couple NAT rules actually scales. (At the very least, you need to be able to distribute keys to pre-built clients, and if you want to make it smooth, you are looking at writing your own Windows/Mac/Android/iOS clients. Then you need all the business management software on top of that -- didn't get the Bitcoins so delete their private key, etc.) It seems like quite a bit of work that is quite expensive. But these things exist left and right and have huge advertising budgets. So obviously I am misunderstanding something.

imglorp 6y ago
I think you're right, a lot of VPN usage has to do with circumventing some tiered, segmented, bullshit content provider restrictions such as region or schedule or device type. The fact that all these people are paying for a service plus VPN means the services are leaving money on the table. If they would simply offer what we want, when we want, where we want it, on the device we want, on a single service without a hassle, many consumer would be lined up for that.
alteria 6y ago
They must massively oversubscribe their services, far beyond ISPs. The advertising probably brings in a lot of profitable users who aren't pushing tons of BitTorrent traffic as well. With the insanely high affiliate commission they're offering I can't think of another way.
- ipython 6y ago
  The conspiratorial side of me says that they have alternate revenue streams as well. Why should only google get that sweet cash from a steady stream of user data?
toohotatopic 6y ago
1Tbyte for $1-$0.5, that gives you 30Gbyte per day. At $5 resale, there's some room for profits. If I am not mistaken, that's 10 hours of video streaming in excellent quality per day.
- TechBro8615 6y ago
  The VPN providers are not paying per gb. They are paying for IP transit, probably in the range of 50c / mbps. They make money by oversubscribing, just like any ISP.
laughinghan 6y ago
No, your premise is wrong, all major browsers have committed to removing third-party cookies, or have already done so. And after third-party cookies, your IP address is the next-easiest way to track you across sites. that Facebook cookie works regardless of what your IP address is Firefox has been blocking third-party cookies by known trackers, including Facebook, since last year [1]. Safari started blocking all third-party cookies (not just known trackers) in March [2], and Chrome committed in January to work towards removing third-party cookies [3]. And of course, all major browsers have provided the option to block third-party cookies since before IE6. I use this option, it rarely breaks things, and it's only getting rarer—and I don't use a VPN, so this would make me measurably harder to track across sites. [1]: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/09/03/todays-firefox-blocks-third-party-tracking-cookies-and-cryptomining-by-default/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/09/03/todays-firefox-bloc... [2]: https://webkit.org/blog/10218/full-third-party-cookie-blocking-and-more/ https://webkit.org/blog/10218/full-third-party-cookie-blocki... [3]: https://blog.chromium.org/2020/01/building-more-private-web-path-towards.html https://blog.chromium.org/2020/01/building-more-private-web-...
- dannyw 6y ago
  Keep in mind that Chrome also sends a high-entropy identifier that is certainly sufficient to identify you in combination with an IP address, to every Google property, including DoubleClick, on every request (first or third party).

imglorp 6y ago

I think you're right, a lot of VPN usage has to do with circumventing some tiered, segmented, bullshit content provider restrictions such as region or schedule or device type. The fact that all these people are paying for a service plus VPN means the services are leaving money on the table. If they would simply offer what we want, when we want, where we want it, on the device we want, on a single service without a hassle, many consumer would be lined up for that.

alteria 6y ago

They must massively oversubscribe their services, far beyond ISPs. The advertising probably brings in a lot of profitable users who aren't pushing tons of BitTorrent traffic as well. With the insanely high affiliate commission they're offering I can't think of another way.

ipython 6y ago
The conspiratorial side of me says that they have alternate revenue streams as well. Why should only google get that sweet cash from a steady stream of user data?

toohotatopic 6y ago

1Tbyte for $1-$0.5, that gives you 30Gbyte per day. At $5 resale, there's some room for profits. If I am not mistaken, that's 10 hours of video streaming in excellent quality per day.

TechBro8615 6y ago
The VPN providers are not paying per gb. They are paying for IP transit, probably in the range of 50c / mbps. They make money by oversubscribing, just like any ISP.

laughinghan 6y ago

No, your premise is wrong, all major browsers have committed to removing third-party cookies, or have already done so. And after third-party cookies, your IP address is the next-easiest way to track you across sites. that Facebook cookie works regardless of what your IP address is Firefox has been blocking third-party cookies by known trackers, including Facebook, since last year [1]. Safari started blocking all third-party cookies (not just known trackers) in March [2], and Chrome committed in January to work towards removing third-party cookies [3]. And of course, all major browsers have provided the option to block third-party cookies since before IE6. I use this option, it rarely breaks things, and it's only getting rarer—and I don't use a VPN, so this would make me measurably harder to track across sites. [1]: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/09/03/todays-firefox-blocks-third-party-tracking-cookies-and-cryptomining-by-default/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/09/03/todays-firefox-bloc... [2]: https://webkit.org/blog/10218/full-third-party-cookie-blocking-and-more/ https://webkit.org/blog/10218/full-third-party-cookie-blocki... [3]: https://blog.chromium.org/2020/01/building-more-private-web-path-towards.html https://blog.chromium.org/2020/01/building-more-private-web-...

dannyw 6y ago
Keep in mind that Chrome also sends a high-entropy identifier that is certainly sufficient to identify you in combination with an IP address, to every Google property, including DoubleClick, on every request (first or third party).