Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why is every podcast sponsored by a VPN company?

girdley.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 50 posts

Re: Why is every podcast sponsored by a VPN company?

#41

Post by tjs8rj »

shalmanese wrote: post #21
franga2000 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad I'm not the only one that got the feeling this video impacted the entire VPN advertising space. All of us techies have been screaming this from day one and many tech-focused creators even talked about this publicly, but the ads kept going. Tom Scott seems to be in the perfect position where he has the technical background to understand why the ads were wrong, but also has a much wider and more general audience t…

I hope someone does a similar takedown of Masterworks (fractional art investing). I've seen way too many financial planning or finance adjacent podcasts regurgitate Masterworks claims completely uncritically to a way too impressionable audience.

Could you list the erroneous claims made in Masterworks ads? I’m not affiliated with them in any way other than as an interested potential customer (and I’ve seen the charts on their site, but haven’t made any deposits)

Re: Why is every podcast sponsored by a VPN company?

#42

Post by bakuninsbart »

runnerup wrote: post #30
piva00 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see VPN companies sponsoring YouTube videos with a segment in the video itself, it's not targeted ads, it's a literal 2 min segment inside an edited video.

They choose which videos and content creators to sponsor. They're more likely to sponsor Linus Tech Tips or MKBHD than Christen Dominique's "Clean Girl On The Go Makeup Tutorial". That's still "targeting" certain demographics.

The biggest actual market proposition for mainstream arguments is unlocking region locked content, so it isn't really 'techy' people that are targeted here, but younger consumers of international media.

Re: Why is every podcast sponsored by a VPN company?

#43

Post by jhugo »

lloydatkinson wrote: post #19
missedthecue wrote: post #7

VPNs are very high margin products (50% of revenue is cashflow, the author points out). But they suffer from higher churn rates than most SaaS businesses. Switching costs are essentially free, it's hard to differentiate your product from someone else's in a meaningful way, discounts and promos abound, and achieving any kind of lock-in is next to impossible. Therefore, they advertise a lot. We here on HN probably get…

Many youtube videos not even aimed at tech audience are sponsored by node vpn

The "surfing without a VPN is dangerous" mindset is pretty pervasive even beyond the tech community.

Re: Why is every podcast sponsored by a VPN company?

#46

Post by PoignardAzur »

franga2000 wrote: post #12
rchowe wrote: post #4

... and a lot of those VPN companies are probably VC-funded. Tom Scott made a good video on the uses and non-uses of VPNs [1]. VPN advertising has changed since that video to downplay "security", but what I think is odd is that they've replaced that with advertisement that basically is "violate the terms of service of Netflix". [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVDQEoe6ZWY

Glad I'm not the only one that got the feeling this video impacted the entire VPN advertising space. All of us techies have been screaming this from day one and many tech-focused creators even talked about this publicly, but the ads kept going. Tom Scott seems to be in the perfect position where he has the technical background to understand why the ads were wrong, but also has a much wider and more general audience t…

I kind of wonder how much NordVPN paid him to make that "actually VPNs are great sometimes" ad with the robot head.

They had to be gunning for it for a while.

Re: Why is every podcast sponsored by a VPN company?

#47

Post by em-bee »

hedora wrote: post #40
toddmorey wrote: post #5

My experience has been that every podcast is sponsored by a another podcast. I'm not sure where the chain ends.

What sort of post-apocalyptic hellscape did you find these podcasts in? I mostly listen to fiction podcasts, and other than mentioning related podcasts/magazines in author/narrator bios, they don't really sponsor each other. (Some do have sponsors; all have patreons, merchandise, etc.) Are you hitting a Spotify "coordinated destruction of all that is good and holy" effect, or is it some genre-specific thing (like dro…

it's an endless abyss. the intent is to trap you in the world of podcasts, so that you may never get out.

seriously though, i am listening to a lot of scifi audio drama and i really appreciate it when i learn about other series with related themes. so if there is one kind of ad that i don't mind it is that. i much prefer that over ads for vpns, mattresses or "cook your own meal" food deliveries.

Re: Why is every podcast sponsored by a VPN company?

#48

Post by hedora »

em-bee wrote: post #47
hedora wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What sort of post-apocalyptic hellscape did you find these podcasts in? I mostly listen to fiction podcasts, and other than mentioning related podcasts/magazines in author/narrator bios, they don't really sponsor each other. (Some do have sponsors; all have patreons, merchandise, etc.) Are you hitting a Spotify "coordinated destruction of all that is good and holy" effect, or is it some genre-specific thing (like dro…

it's an endless abyss. the intent is to trap you in the world of podcasts, so that you may never get out. seriously though, i am listening to a lot of scifi audio drama and i really appreciate it when i learn about other series with related themes. so if there is one kind of ad that i don't mind it is that. i much prefer that over ads for vpns, mattresses or "cook your own meal" food deliveries.

Yeah; I'm a particularly big fan of the artist/voice actor bios that mention related podcasts.

Excuse me while I talk to my dial-a-therapist while chopping onions on my new tube-packed mattress.

Re: Why is every podcast sponsored by a VPN company?

#50

Post by iancmceachern »

runnerup wrote: post #30
piva00 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see VPN companies sponsoring YouTube videos with a segment in the video itself, it's not targeted ads, it's a literal 2 min segment inside an edited video.

They choose which videos and content creators to sponsor. They're more likely to sponsor Linus Tech Tips or MKBHD than Christen Dominique's "Clean Girl On The Go Makeup Tutorial". That's still "targeting" certain demographics.

Yeah but that's mo different than choosing to advertise on this old house or another TV show. It's just advertising, not targeted.
Post reply on HN