Video Is Sponsored by VPN (Tom Scott, 2020) | Hacker News Reader

Video Is Sponsored by VPN (Tom Scott, 2020)

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11 pointsjeanlucas10 comments

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Note: Tom Scott released a video today sponsored by Nord VPN, looks like this time they paid well.

Technically it wasn't Tom speaking, so all is good

UPD: never mind, just watched the most recent video, it looks like the real Tom Scott was speaking this time

Always sad to see when people so blatantly sell out. The linked video is right on the money, too.

I wonder what made him change his mind. Is this his primary income now, maybe? Or did he just get greedier?

Well in the video he released today, he didn't make any of the silly claims he was arguing against in this video. He doesn't talk about "military grade encryption" or anything to do with privacy/security. He just lists a couple practical uses for having an IP address in a different country.

I noticed that, but it yet doesn't feel right.

It was not just about what they advertise, he warns about how they can't be safe by design. And yet... NordVPN did use those same tactics in the past.

To me, and that is very personal, is like doing a gun advertisement and not mention the bad parts, but find old posts from you asking for gun control.

Doesn't seem coherent.

I did a small tweetstorm about it[0], and will forget about this later on. Ah, I also unsubscribed from his channel.

[0]: https://twitter.com/aleattorium/status/1541445092820631552

I watched this video earlier today, and had previously seen his video criticizing VPN services.

The video he was commenting on was about how "tradition" has no place in business, and then segued into why he believed a service like Nord VPN can be valuable.

The tounge-in-cheek segue was a reference to his previous video. I still believe that everything in that video rings true, but despite effectively "burning the bridge" with NordVPN, he ultimately found an effective use for the service, which was getting around region-bans and language-locks when using the internet abroad.

His willingness to endorse them wasn't inconsistent with his previous video- and he has said nothing contradictory. Rather than emphasizing this as a means of security, though, he emphasized it as a way to spoofing IP addresses for services that require you to be in a specific region- which for some people, might be worth the price-tag.

Starting to see a lot of criticism towards VPNs and the advertisements for them. Tom is right on the money. The ads are incredibly misleading.

The only thing I would add is that a VPN won't do a damn thing about websites tracking you. For that, you need a ad/tracker blocker like uBlock Origin.

Fun fact: Both NordVPN and SurfShark are run by the same company. It's now out in the open and they have merged (earlier this year), but even from the start there were very close ties. The parent company of NordVPN provided consulting services when SurfShark was formed:

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/surfshark-an...

I've heard rumours that it's even closer than that, and that they were both run by the same people from the start, with the original intent to have two separate brands to allow them to capture more of the market. Is there a name for this technique?

I'm seeing the same thing where I live, where a new fiber infrastructure has a choice of a few ISPs, but two of them are actually shells owned by the same outfit (an existing hosting provider). I'm really not sure why. The products aren't substantially different, as I guess they aren't with these two VPN providers.

To give consumers the illusion of choice. If an aggravated customer cancels their service with Shell Company A to switch to Shell Company B, the corporation that owns them both still has that customer.

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