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

Post by eli » Sun, Oct 07, 2018, 6:18 PM UTC

mtmail wrote: post #12

todd3834 wrote: post #8

The fact that it is easy to set up a VPN does make this more competitive but that doesn’t mean you can’t build a business. Think about who your customers will be. Is there an underserved niche that you can reach? It might take a HN reader 10 minutes to set up a VPN but my mom wouldn’t be able to figure it out if you gave her 10 months. My battle plan for assessing whether or not I would pursued this would be the foll…

Adding an example of a niche: Those who wish to crawl Google/Bing/Amazon/Youtube results for SEO analysis around the world. You'd write a wrapper or other positive list of domains allowed through the proxy.

Post by farresito » Sun, Oct 07, 2018, 6:24 PM UTC

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 .

Post by zakk » Sun, Oct 07, 2018, 6:42 PM UTC

rsync wrote: post #31

mtmail wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding an example of a niche: Those who wish to crawl Google/Bing/Amazon/Youtube results for SEO analysis around the world. You'd write a wrapper or other positive list of domains allowed through the proxy.

One very interesting niche that I recently learned about was providing a VPN with a "residential" IP block that could be used to geo-shift netflix viewing: https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/138668/vps-for-us-netf... Apparently there are a lot of people who would like to watch "US Netflix" but cannot do so from their location.

Post by CodeWriter23 » Sun, Oct 07, 2018, 6:45 PM UTC

alliecat wrote: post #29

By and large, people are interested in VPNs because they're vulnerable, in some way or another. By becoming a VPN provider, you become a "pinch point" for the connections of a number of vulnerable people. That way, a hypothetical bad actor only needs to compromise one entity (you) in order to gain access those people who rely on you. Aggregating vulnerability makes you a target, and puts your customers at risk - Espe…

Post by celticninja » Sun, Oct 07, 2018, 6:52 PM UTC

farresito wrote: post #43

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 .

Thank you for mentioning it. Just removed it. Do you know of any good, non-expensive (VPN?) alternatives? I was using it to access Netflix in other languages for language learning purposes.