Thriving may be a bit strong - These are small potatoes compared to apple, sure, but these are tech obsessed people buying privacy orientated products.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Librem 5 raised over $2.1 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...
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.