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I don't agree that it's zero sum - this is a niche market that, if it could reach a broader audience, would experience an influx of new customers. That could po

I don't agree that it's zero sum - this is a niche market that, if it could reach a broader audience, would experience an influx of new customers. That could potentially benefit all the players in the market, though of course it would benefit the company driving the popularisation the most. Personally I think that in marketing like this NordVPN are not trying to convince existing VPN users that their service is better than their competitors'. Rather, they are trying to convince non-VPN users that they need a VPN.

Ekaros 4y ago
VPN marketing seems to boil down to two things. Either scaring people about their ISPs and "hackers" trying to steal something. Or circumventing geo-ip blocks... Now later is valid, but somewhat questionable use. And first depends, but probably not needed unless they really want to use that unsecured airport wlan... So it is really convincing people they need it. For those reasons...
wswope 4y ago
> this is a niche market that, if it could reach a broader audience, would experience an influx of new customers. Honestly curious: what makes you think that? I'm someone who really likes VPNs, but in all my experience, they have some really rough edges for non-technical people. I would never recommend one to my non-technical friends or family unless they had a very specific need for it. Using Nord as an example, since it's a popular option: - The client takes >90 seconds to load and connect on my Win10 Intel Atom craptop. - Apple often flags some Nord IPs (probably due to legitimate abuse/attacks coming from them) - leading to Apple Maps, Siri, and other services hanging indefinitely on iOS. - As of a year ago, the Nord CLI client was completely borking the networking on my stock Debian 10 install whenever I went idle for a few hours. (Didn't dig super deep, but the CLI client would go totally unresponsive and I couldn't get network going again by any other means apart from full reboot.) - Majority of banking/financial service websites block you. - You're much more likely to get flagged/run into issues when making payments or signing up for any sort of new account. - Many desktop apps don't gracefully handle the IP change when you connect to VPN. Some of this is Nord-specific, but my point is that people just looking to dip their toes in the water are going to run into some form of similar issue - and that makes VPNs not very user-friendly to the general public. That's why I think most of the people who'd want a VPN already know about them.
- fomine3 4y ago
  Even if VPN services are like you said, still they want to sell more and it's possible by ads. Degradation could be justified for "privacy".
  - wswope 4y ago
    Is your thinking that more ads would convince people who don’t currently care about privacy to care about it? Or that there’s a contingent of privacy advocates with enough tech skills to navigate these issues that aren’t aware of VPNs yet?
    - fomine3 4y ago
      I think former. I think it's somewhat effective, as Apple does privacy ads that attacks competitors.

Ekaros 4y ago

VPN marketing seems to boil down to two things. Either scaring people about their ISPs and "hackers" trying to steal something. Or circumventing geo-ip blocks... Now later is valid, but somewhat questionable use. And first depends, but probably not needed unless they really want to use that unsecured airport wlan... So it is really convincing people they need it. For those reasons...

wswope 4y ago

> this is a niche market that, if it could reach a broader audience, would experience an influx of new customers. Honestly curious: what makes you think that? I'm someone who really likes VPNs, but in all my experience, they have some really rough edges for non-technical people. I would never recommend one to my non-technical friends or family unless they had a very specific need for it. Using Nord as an example, since it's a popular option: - The client takes >90 seconds to load and connect on my Win10 Intel Atom craptop. - Apple often flags some Nord IPs (probably due to legitimate abuse/attacks coming from them) - leading to Apple Maps, Siri, and other services hanging indefinitely on iOS. - As of a year ago, the Nord CLI client was completely borking the networking on my stock Debian 10 install whenever I went idle for a few hours. (Didn't dig super deep, but the CLI client would go totally unresponsive and I couldn't get network going again by any other means apart from full reboot.) - Majority of banking/financial service websites block you. - You're much more likely to get flagged/run into issues when making payments or signing up for any sort of new account. - Many desktop apps don't gracefully handle the IP change when you connect to VPN. Some of this is Nord-specific, but my point is that people just looking to dip their toes in the water are going to run into some form of similar issue - and that makes VPNs not very user-friendly to the general public. That's why I think most of the people who'd want a VPN already know about them.

fomine3 4y ago
Even if VPN services are like you said, still they want to sell more and it's possible by ads. Degradation could be justified for "privacy".
- wswope 4y ago
  Is your thinking that more ads would convince people who don’t currently care about privacy to care about it? Or that there’s a contingent of privacy advocates with enough tech skills to navigate these issues that aren’t aware of VPNs yet?
  - fomine3 4y ago
    I think former. I think it's somewhat effective, as Apple does privacy ads that attacks competitors.