WindCon2024: A Joke Too Far for Many | Hacker News Reader

WindCon2024: A Joke Too Far for Many

blog.windscribe.com

22 pointsPawgerZ35 comments

The end of the article was the most surprising to me, because in spite of their favorable self-comparison to Proton VPN, I had never heard of them before. I've spent the last 7+ years neck deep in the privacy and security space, working alongside hundreds of others doing the same, so it surprises me a lot that this is the first time I've ever heard of this company.

It's possible I've just missed them, but not even to have heard of them in passing is weird.

Do me a favor.

My interpretation of the VPN space is that if you're a signals intelligence agency you'd have to be insane not to want to control that layer. As a big publicly funded entity, you can also subsidize a level of service at prices that entrepreneurs can't even begin to compete with.

Is the market likely comprised exclusively of NSA fronts competing with each other, and with GCHQ, and with Spetssvyaz, Guóānbù, etc?

> Is the market likely comprised exclusively of NSA fronts competing with each other

Nah. Clandestine spook fronts are low profile entities. When they've been pervasive, it was in a niche market.

> Do me a favor.

What's the favor?

Why own the space when you can buy legal mandated secret access to all its data (which also subsidizes the industry)

They don't do much advertising and don't "take themselves seriously" which usually leads to a smaller, tighter community.

>4 days before April 1st they "took control" of the Discord server.

if you're going to do april fools, do it on the day don't start it days in advance.

Just because something happens on April 1st doesn't mean it's a joke. Regular business keeps happening, and you need your customers to be able to tell the difference.

Especially if you're a global company whose audience either might not be familiar with April fools, or is extremely cautious by nature (vpn subscribers, I'd assume are).

Gmail was launched on April 1st and at the time it seemed like an April Fools prank - how could Google possibly give you 1GB of storage for free?

Still waiting for them to say "sike"

They have. They now delete accounts for inactivity.

Remember when they replaced the "send and archive" button with mic drop, which would send a rude GIF and then mute the conversation so you couldn't even see your customers and clients complaining to apologize?

Not necessarily all of them!

If the customers who can’t tell the difference leave and twice as many new ones join, you’re winning.

I’m happy with Mullvad, but I’m more likely to use or recommend Windscribe in future because they do stuff like this (even though I think most April Fools stuff is a bit tired and it's generally overdone, I much prefer companies to have a personality, be quirky, etc. — easy to like is hard to love).

> If the customers who can’t tell the difference leave and twice as many new ones join, you’re winning.

Quite a few years ago (around 2010), gog.com ran an April Fool's joke claiming they were shutting down. They went all-out for it, including blocking anyone from downloading their paid-for games for the day. Unsurprisingly, people were upset, and I saw more than one person vow never to buy from them again. I always wondered how many customers they lost from that stunt vs. how many they gained.

Never heard of them but I watched the video.

It's quite funny and over the top. And the details of how committed they were to this joke is pretty impressive.

The usual complaint about corporate april fools is that it's just a not very funny blog post, done for PR reasons.

But these people committed. They had fake leaks, a fake conference, a rebellion in Discord. I'm impressed with the level of effort it took to take a joke towards an alternate reality game type level.

Bravo!

Perhaps the problem was that none of this actually seemed funny...?

Making fun of “woke” is a pretty right-wing-coded behavior in my experience, even (especially?) in the context of April Fools joking.

If they had omitted the word “woke” and, say, simply joked about being more “corporate” perhaps, I think their antics would be perceived as less partisan.

I thought it was hilarious. Perhaps I’ve suffered through one too-many corporate culture synergistic vision realignments…

It’s weird that they consider Proton VPN their only real competitor.

Have they had a look at Mullvad VPN?

Mullvad has done a lot for privacy as a VPN service, including but far from limited to:

https://mullvad.net/blog/2019/6/3/system-transparency-future...

https://mullvad.net/blog/2022/1/12/diskless-infrastructure-b...

https://mullvad.net/blog/2022/5/3/we-now-accept-monero/

https://mullvad.net/blog/we-have-successfully-completed-our-...

The sentence you must be referring to reads "Proton VPN is realistically our only true rival in the Free VPN space", which is a pretty careful scoping that means Mullvad--which explicitly offers no free service--isn't relevant for the statement.

That makes sense. I misread it somehow and didn’t make the connection of having a free of charge tier.

Not only are they talking about the free VPN space -- as the other comment mentioned -- but they also make a lot of jokes about ProtonVPN. I'm not the most informed about their community's inside jokes, but I think this is one of them.

That's actually a pretty brilliant way to get rid of problem customers.

Not a subscriber but enjoyed the video. Nice entertainment if bored. Feels pretty high production value. Don’t understand how it has anything to do being a VPN though

It's an april fools joke. It's not supposed to be about being a VPN. It's meant to entertain.

People who are unable to distinguish reality from fiction, and take any mention of the slightest taboo topic with the highest offence, are probably the worst people to be around short of, well, actual fascists.

I think this is what's caused "try-hard".

April fools outside a very small close group of friends is unbecoming.

I dont want my government to joke

I dont want my employer to joke

I dont want my client to joke

I dont want my supplier to joke

I dont want my religious leader to joke.

Why? Because the above aren't my friends. They are not invited into my intimate inner space of close knit relations. Furthermore I don't need a cheap laugh and I don't need someone to entertain me.

The pervasiveness of "joking around" in these settings is further evidence, for me, of our society's infantilization.

That's why most coporations are very serious and "professional" -- Windscribe doesn't want to be a faceless beaurocracy. If that's what you're looking for, go with Nord or something. Not every company is for you.

These jokes are so tiresome. It was cute two decades ago but please let this stupid tradition die. It's become devoid of all humor and makes April 1 a hassle honestly.

It may be simply you who has become devoid of humor, since it’s notably subjective…

I liked the part of their article where they complained they suffered “abuse” because of their dimwit activity, exactly as should all parties who perpetrate April 1 computer-guy “humor.”

Take April 1st off and spend the day alone. People being annoying on that day is the perfect excuse to waste the day with computer games.

Or go fishing. Whatever rocks your boat and is far from other people.

but if they rock the boat they'll scare away all the fish

Keep the jokes to yourself. Our time is far too expensive for them at work.

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