They need to advertise a legitimate use for their service.
If they don’t have a threat from public wifi or other security concerns to remedy, then the only purpose for their service is to bypass region limits and block infringement notices. They would be considered complicit in such infringement.
That their service also hinders efforts to stop pirates needs to be an “unintended” and “unavoidable” side effect.
There are plenty of legitimate uses for their services, they just aren’t things that the vast majority of people actually need. For example:
access things in a LAN from a WAN - i.e. access a personal PC when you’re at a friend’s house, and your home LAN is behind CGNAT
get around local laws - e.g. my state requires ID checks for porn and social media, so getting a VPN one state over gets around that
prevent ISP from seeing the sites you visit - very valid privacy concern, especially since SNI exists to de-mask TLS packets
There are also some sketchier needs, such as:
get different content on your streaming platform
hide sharing of illegal content (i.e. piracy)
perform illegal transactions (e.g. going on Tor to buy drugs or whatever on the black market)
I think VPNs are trying to appeal to more than just the above needs, they’re trying to create needs to grow their marketshare. That isn’t something a reputable VPN should do, or at least that’s something that would make me hesitate to use a given VPN.
I use Proton when I’m on my university’s campus because they switched to using EDUroam for the campus wifi. I used to be a Sys Admin at a different university a while back, and from what I know, EDUroam allows the IT department to monitor basically all of the traffic over the network. I don’t know exactly how deep that stuff goes, but if I was doing anything personal or sensitive like banking or whatever, I’d flip on the VPN on my personal computer. I also don’t have any personal accounts logged in on the school issued laptop because they have it loaded with institutional spyware. Once I graduate, I’ll blank the drive and reinstall the OS to have a decent Lenovo laptop on hand as a spare.
Edit to add: I use Proton because it was the least shady service that I could get for a reasonable price as a student. It is also helpful for finding textbooks. :)
Edit: The region limits thing is nice though. It’s not why I got the VPN, but it’s nice to not have to pay to watch the Olympics and just watch it via the CBC or the BBC.
They need to advertise a legitimate use for their service.
If they don’t have a threat from public wifi or other security concerns to remedy, then the only purpose for their service is to bypass region limits and block infringement notices. They would be considered complicit in such infringement.
That their service also hinders efforts to stop pirates needs to be an “unintended” and “unavoidable” side effect.
There are plenty of legitimate uses for their services, they just aren’t things that the vast majority of people actually need. For example:
There are also some sketchier needs, such as:
I think VPNs are trying to appeal to more than just the above needs, they’re trying to create needs to grow their marketshare. That isn’t something a reputable VPN should do, or at least that’s something that would make me hesitate to use a given VPN.
I use Proton when I’m on my university’s campus because they switched to using EDUroam for the campus wifi. I used to be a Sys Admin at a different university a while back, and from what I know, EDUroam allows the IT department to monitor basically all of the traffic over the network. I don’t know exactly how deep that stuff goes, but if I was doing anything personal or sensitive like banking or whatever, I’d flip on the VPN on my personal computer. I also don’t have any personal accounts logged in on the school issued laptop because they have it loaded with institutional spyware. Once I graduate, I’ll blank the drive and reinstall the OS to have a decent Lenovo laptop on hand as a spare.
Edit to add: I use Proton because it was the least shady service that I could get for a reasonable price as a student. It is also helpful for finding textbooks. :)
I’m not defending Proton. I don’t even use them.
Edit: The region limits thing is nice though. It’s not why I got the VPN, but it’s nice to not have to pay to watch the Olympics and just watch it via the CBC or the BBC.