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We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

mullvad.net

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Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#231

Post by hunter2_ »

usr1106 wrote: post #135
hunter2_ wrote: post #36

For customers who don't go to great length to protect their own privacy when paying (i.e., all subscribers, I assume) Mullvad should persuade them to replace their subscription with the "bill pay" feature of most checking accounts -- maybe even offer tutorials for common banks. I'm not an expert in the implications of a subpoena and if banks get involved, but it seems like it would at least be a way to keep the reven…

Banking is highly national. It does not even work very uniformily in SEPA (Single European Payment Area). Of course there are mandatory SEPA features that every bank in every country must support. But there are other national features which are used in some countries by practically all businesses basically making everything incompatible again. And of course there are many countries completely outside of SEPA.

I'm in the US and I'm not familiar with banking elsewhere, but the "bill pay" feature I'm talking about will try some electronic system first, and if the recipient doesn't support it, the bank simply mails a check. The recipient could be as small/offline as any person at a residential address. I assume writing a check and mailing it is a fairly typical thing everywhere, and having the bank do this on a repeating schedule doesn't seem like a huge hurdle, but I could be wrong.

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#232

Post by ignoramous »

acallaghan wrote: post #55
shafyy wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably true. So, how does Mullvad handle this?

I suspect a temporary ID that links the two that lives for just the time of the Payment Request and transmitted as metadata? Once the payment is successful, it removes the ID linking the payment to the account ID & severs the link - just the account has the credit

I've done something similar to disassociate customer-ids from their logs.

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokenization_(data_security) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-shredding

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#234

Post by bcrosby95 »

lolc wrote: post #209
ryanbrunner wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think saying subscriptions are a dark pattern is going a bit far. In the case where you're offering an ongoing service that requires a cost to service, a subscription model is completely appropriate and in the best interest of both the subscriber and the issuer. For sure there's some abuse of the model where you're selling something that should be a one-time item, but that's not the case here, and Mullvad is provid…

To me, a dark pattern is when the service doesn't announce in advance when the subscription is going to renew.

These emails always annoy me. To each their own I guess.

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#235

Post by bombcar »

jwilk wrote: post #171
zulln wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selecting Pretzel24 as payment method redirects to https://go.przelewy24.pl/ where in turn you choose between different banks. I guess it is a Polish service for direct bank payments?

Wait, does it actually say "Pretzel" somewere, or did you both misspell it? "przelewy" means "wire transfers" in Polish: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/przelew Nothing to do with pretzels. :)

I misread it as Pretzel the first time and couldn't resist, especially after clicking the page gave me a 'NOT FOUND' error. I assumed it was some sort of payment system.

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#236

Post by onelovetwo »

charles_f wrote: post #9

> convenience comes at a cost and we no longer think this is an acceptable trade-off. In an age where dissertations about what color and position to use for buttons go pages long, that's a courageous position that follows a clear strategy. Kudos!

I think its also good for Mullvad, they push people towards the 1y plan instead. No one is going to put their payment info in every single month.

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#237

Post by nzgrover »

iKlsR wrote: post #49
potency wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who are you using now?

Been using PIA for the past few years. Tried Proton but this looks really good and having the entire thread sending +1s is major. Will def give it a try.

re PIA, have you seen this? https://restoreprivacy.com/kape-technologies-owns-expressvpn...

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#238

Post by simias »

lukvol wrote: post #121
simias wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also like that they let you download the raw wireguard config files so that you can connect without having to use their client. You can just plop them onto your filesystem and use wg-quick to get going. Since I'm also a ProtonMail user and I considered switching to them for VPN as well but their python client doesn't seem to work correctly on my Arch Linux install and it doesn't give me anything useful to debug it…

I think you can also get the raw wireguard config files for ProtonVPN: https://protonvpn.com/support/wireguard-configurations/

I did not know that! Thanks a lot. I'll definitely give it another try.

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#240

Post by banana_giraffe »

rafale wrote: post #211
banana_giraffe wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be aware, at least Nord clearly does something different with their client than with the OpenVPN files they provide ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21664692 ). When I dug into this, I found similar cases with other major VPN providers, but my notes are sufficiently out of date, they shouldn't be trusted anymore. Sometimes the differences are subtle, sometimes they're rather complex like this case. Personally,…

What cloud do you use? A lot of websites will flag any AWS or data center IP as a bot.

So, I do have two VPN servers running, one on my home connection, and one on AWS, for just the reason you state.

That said, I got back from a week long trip a few weeks ago. I kept my AWS tunnel up the entire trip. For the set of websites I visit for personal and work reasons, it was never an issue. I'm sure I could find some website that doesn't work, but for me, it's just not a problem.

It's also super useful, since I can whitelist my AWS instance's IP on services that demand such things, and never have to worry about where I am as I move from network to network. I've also reserved the Elastic IP so I can stop/terminate my server when I want without needing to whitelist the IP again when I spin it back up

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