Ask HN: Why do you use a VPN?

Almost every YouTuber I see is sponsored by some type of VPN company, so it's obviously a lucrative vertical. I've been on the internet since the late 90's and still can't wrap my mind around any reason to pay for a VPN service aside from nefarious purposes.

Hoping to hear what your particular use case is to shell out that monthly fee.

I do it to keep all my devices on the same IP subnet. Things like Syncthing and SSH "Just Work" over cellular data and McDonalds Guest Wifi as if you were on a home network. Tailscale does this really well, and they don't try to market themselves as some privacy broker. They're a plain-and-simple virtual router, and it works really well in my experience.

The term “VPN” has become a bit overloaded. It can mean, among other things:

1) a corporate VPN you connect to in order to gain access to corporate resources. Cisco AnyConnect, OpenVPN, IPsec/L2TP are examples of this type.

2) An overlay network that allows seamless (and secure) access to systems on disparate networks. Wireguard (and thus Tailscale), ZeroTier are examples of this type.

3) A way for individuals to obscure their internet traffic by tunneling it to a VPN provider. Mullvad, PIA, Nord are examples of this type.

All of the sponsorships you see are from companies in category #3. It is my opinion that there are very few circumstances where using a VPN (#3) is useful or needed. HTTPS is ubiquitous, and browsers have various mechanisms for MitM prevention and other anti-spoofing/anti-tampering mechanisms. Taken together, these provide a high degree of protection that wasn’t necessarily as widely-deployed just a handful of years ago - a time when using a VPN was more useful.

Are there situations where using a VPN (#3) is warranted? Yes, for sure. However, these content creators who are taking sponsor money from VPN providers are doing their viewers a disservice by making them think they need a VPN. 99% of the public does not, and should not waste their money on it.

99% access my home network remotely, but that's not really the use case of VPN services that get promoted. If I used those it would be 99% dodging geo restrictions, but I'm not motivated enough to do that.

1) For work if I want to appear in a location.

2) Security if in public eifi environments.

3) Occasionally to obfuscate information if I want to download a movie or look at information, nothing interesting/nefarious but maybe you want to look at health stuff and not feel some insurance company is going to target you for ads or assume you have the condition type thing.

4) Using phone for international travel. If you use a server in your home county, turn on wifi calling and use the phone as normal for calls/text. This is how it should be.