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Comment by malvosenior | Hacker News Reader

What would be the best way to capitalize from a personal investment standpoint in what I can only imagine will be massive growth in VPN usage? The EU and UK are going to end up cutting off large swaths of the internet from their population but I have no doubt people will still want unfettered internet access.

Are there any publicly traded VPN providers?

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Don't view any such purchase as a long term investment. It probably won't be long before the UK government demands that ISPs block all VPN usage. It looks increasingly likely that many western countries will soon be taking a Chinese-style approach towards the internet. There's always some small benefit to restricting liberty, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

> It looks increasingly likely that many western countries will soon be taking a Chinese-style approach towards the internet.

Could you elaborate on why you'd think this?

I mean, that's a pretty significant prediction, and if it's about a near-term happening based on current observations, that'd be good information to be aware of.

Predictions are typically made by looking at recent trends and then extrapolating from there. It would take some time, but I could provide you with a bunch of links to reputable news sources on this subject. Instead, to save time, let's go with a one page summary of the new internet censorship that is being proposed (or is already taking place) in some western countries in just the past month:

https://www.citizensagainstidiocracy.com/93/internet-censors...

I'd say your best bet is probably waiting for CloudFlare to IPO. They're teasing a 1.1.1.1 branded VPN just recently.

Thank you, exactly what I was looking for!

Note that the Cloudflare 1^4 'Warp' VPN won't be a "get around country blocks" VPN.

CloudFlare were extremely vague about where the end points of their VPN service would occur though. They said it "wasn't intended for circumventing geofiltering", which is fair enough, but that suggests it would have end points in your own country. In which case it's unlikely to be helpful against the UK's increasingly insane, authoritarian government.

> Are there any publicly traded VPN providers?

McAfee bought TunnelBear

Sure, but...McAfee.

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