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Ask HN: What is it like to run a VPN as a business?

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Re: Ask HN: What is it like to run a VPN as a business?

#61

Post by teknologist »

A great niche to get into would be Internet censorship avoidance in countries where Internet freedom isn't a thing. As an expat living in China, I can tell you that there are only a few companies that do this successfully (among them Astrill and ExpressVPN).

Operating this kind of VPN comes with its own set of unique technical challenges, such as avoiding DNS poisoning and offering the best protocols to use. Spinning up a homebrew solution on DO just doesn't cut it as an end user, so we rely on companies like these to provide targeted solutions.

A VPN provider that can focus on avoiding common blocking techniques would be very valuable to a lot of people.

Re: Ask HN: What is it like to run a VPN as a business?

#62

Post by dzhiurgis »

bhouston wrote: post #27

The successful companies appear to be run at least partially anonymously and based in tax havens. I figure that is because there is legal responsibility that they are trying to dodge. People use vpn for illegal stuff, and the least worst is Netflix then p2p. P2p if you are a facilitator could land you in jail.

This. Had a lengthy discussion with a friend who has a friend where one works.

My theory was - why bot setup virtual VPN provider that all such companies could buy. After all it’s simple and rea grunt of work is marketing and legal.

Legally, these companies are setup somewhere in Caymans et al.

Being such a shady business by definition, I have extremely hard time trusting such services. It’s like the most obvious honeypot / trojan horse ever.

Re: Ask HN: What is it like to run a VPN as a business?

#63

Post by dzhiurgis »

chadash wrote: post #9

From a technical perspective, you're probably not breaking new ground here. The main things you'll need are ease-of-use and good marketing. There are existing companies that do this and make it fairly easy to get up and running, so you'll need to do the same. Perhaps start with a niche (e.g. easy setup on Ubuntu) and build from there. Still, your biggest hurdle is going to be that no one has heard of you, so make sur…

One service I’d be willing to pay is intercontinental booster.

Living in NZ means you’ve got quite underprovisioned international pipe. 100mbps fibre realistically means 3mbps...

If a VPN could route you via their dedicated pipe...

Re: Ask HN: What is it like to run a VPN as a business?

#64

Post by preinheimer »

We offer VPN as a side thing to help our customers who are testing their websites from around the world. At the behest of some friends I added VPN as its own plan.

A choice you need to make really early on when you're offering a VPN is how much data you want to log. Eventually someone will do something on your service that pisses someone else off. That could be torrenting, spam, defrauding the elderly, etc. Ideally you, but more than likely your provider will receive an angry letter. Whether or not you've logged will choose what you can do next. If you're not logging, and unable to stop complaints from coming in your provider might turn you off completely, so you'll want to pick a provider known to pass letters on without caring.

I blogged about our choice (we log) here: https://wonderproxy.com/blog/our-vpn-what-we-log-and-why/

Re: Ask HN: What is it like to run a VPN as a business?

#65

Post by amingilani »

wild_preference wrote: post #35

One of my "favorite" evil business models is Hola VPN ( https://hola.org ), a free browser VPN extension. Hola VPN users unknowingly become exit nodes for residential IP address proxies for sale at https://luminati.io .

Whoa, as a luminati customer, I always wondered how they got these residential IPs. Now I know.

Re: Ask HN: What is it like to run a VPN as a business?

#66

Post by morpheuskafka »

wild_preference wrote: post #35

One of my "favorite" evil business models is Hola VPN ( https://hola.org ), a free browser VPN extension. Hola VPN users unknowingly become exit nodes for residential IP address proxies for sale at https://luminati.io .

> Hola works because it is a peer-to-peer network - you use the network and contribute to the network. To provide this service without charge to our community, Hola charges validated corporations for use of the network. For Hola users that do not want to be a peer in this network, we offer the Hola Premium service, which lets you only use the network, but not be a part of it

Seems quite knowing to me. That same FAQ page, which is very detailed, even provides an explanation of what permissions are used.

Re: Ask HN: What is it like to run a VPN as a business?

#67

Post by gscott »

geofft wrote: post #38

One possible option is to sell VPN service to friends/family/acquaintances, for a price that is (clearly to them) cheaper than comparable commercial VPNs, in exchange for a promise to not do anything that would get you in legal trouble. You can trust the promise more than you could trust standard terms-of-service because you know them, and hopefully the lower price means they see it as you offering them something as…

Just tell customers everything is logged and the logs are deleted on a rolling basis every year.

Re: Ask HN: What is it like to run a VPN as a business?

#68

Post by wittedhaddock »

foob wrote: post #53
wild_preference wrote: post #35

One of my "favorite" evil business models is Hola VPN ( https://hola.org ), a free browser VPN extension. Hola VPN users unknowingly become exit nodes for residential IP address proxies for sale at https://luminati.io .

As part of a company in the residential proxy space [1], I just wanted to point out that this type of proxy is used in a very different way than low-end VPNs. Residential proxies tend to much more expensive, and this results in them being used almost exclusively for legitimate business purposes. It's even a standard practice to go through a KYC process before obtaining access to residential proxies in order to ensure…

still loving that f5bot article, thank you sir

Re: Ask HN: What is it like to run a VPN as a business?

#69

Post by giancarlostoro »

hazz99 wrote: post #18
Johnny555 wrote: post #13

I'd be most worried about the legal liability, what happens if someone starts using your service to download or sell pirated movies or child porn? Whats your legal exposure?

Yeah this is my issue. I'm not too worried about it being a successful business (more like a small side project), but I don't have the resources to fight any legal claims.

Whatever you decide, do NOT run this under your own name. Create an LLC or similar. Do not risk your home and personal assets over a side project. It's better to lose the LLC which should only hold this service than to lose your own personal assets.

Re: Ask HN: What is it like to run a VPN as a business?

#70

Post by emmanuel_1234 »

hazz99 wrote: post #18
Johnny555 wrote: post #13

I'd be most worried about the legal liability, what happens if someone starts using your service to download or sell pirated movies or child porn? Whats your legal exposure?

Yeah this is my issue. I'm not too worried about it being a successful business (more like a small side project), but I don't have the resources to fight any legal claims.

- Do not run it in the US.

- Do not sell the service in the country you run it.

- Really, do not run it in the US.

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