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Comment by ducktective | Hacker News Reader

Why Mozilla doesn't host their own WireGuard-based VPNs? Could be a good way to lure users.

Running a VPN service is not a simple operation. I assume Mozilla simply did not want to maintain their own infrastructure.

Apart from all the legal trouble like dealing with copyright violations (DMCA emails), law enforcement requests etc. it is also increasingly difficult for the VPN providers to circumvent VPN detection services (like https://focsec.com). Netflix, Spotify and others are investing heavily into VPN detection technology, so it is a constant cat and mouse game, they always need to bring up new locations.

Yep, Mozilla does not have VPN infrastructure money. They're happy if they have enough money to develop Firefox.

Of course they could afford it, but would it be good use of money? I kind of doubt a Mozilla-hosted VPN would be much more popular than the Mullvad-based one, and them partnering companies that do a good job instead of competing sounds like not a bad thing.

What makes you so sure they could afford it? How much does it cost to set up an independent global VPN service?

Not sure about exact numbers, but e.g. Mullvad appears to have less than 25 employees, some of which are going to be administrative overhead Mozilla already covers for the entire company, so lets say ~20 people on the product (including support etc)? Even a now downsized Mozilla has to be able to dedicate 20 people to an attempt to make money. And that is probably not as small as you could do it if you had to.

Don’t VPNs have a very large number of servers all over the world? That must cost a ton of money and make it hard for new players to enter the market without a significant investment. I’m not sure Mozilla can spare such an investment right now.

> Netflix, Spotify and others are investing heavily into VPN detection technology

I never understood why. It seems to me that only effect of this "investing" is surge in piracy.

My guess would be that they are required to enforce geoblocking as part of their licensing agreements with the studios.

I assume the push comes from the original license holders of the content, wanting to bargain effectively with multiple parties region by region around the world.

Back in the day Netflix really didnt seem to care about region blocking beyond the most basic check, and why would they - you pay your subs and you get content.

Being able to get more content by proxying to say the US etc actually got them more subscribers not less.

Why can't they do region locking based on the billing address of the credit/debit card used to pay for their services?

Travel. Content is licensed to geographic areas, not people/billing areas.

I understand the legal _why_, but legal stuff is maleable, much like most things that people have created.

> but legal stuff is maleable

... but I don't think Disney is.

(And yes, Disney+ is technically only available outside of Asia - while some services inside of Asia is branded Disney+, they are not even the same system at all!)

Which is utterly, brainlessly, grubbily stupid as a facet of modern digital content streaming. Aside from being absurd in principle, will large numbers of people suddenly migrate to another country so they can use its Netflix selection? Probably not.

Because they drank the evil corporate Kool aid years ago; it's cheaper and easier just to misappropriate someone else's service.

How are they misappropriating anything?

Well, by virtue of what the GP comment said:

> Mozilla also offers a white-label version of Mullvad VPN, while subtly implying that they operate the VPN themselves: “A Virtual Private Network from the makers of Firefox.”

Maybe 'misappropriate' is a bit of a stretch, and certainly the rest of the language in the above comment is tiresomely partisan, but it's not hard to see what they meant.

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