from Hacker News

WeVPN Is Shutting Down

by askura on 4/13/23, 6:10 PM with 85 comments

  • by yegor on 4/13/23, 8:18 PM

    Heya, Windscribe co-founder here.

    WeVPN indirectly approached us to "make their users whole" for the time that they had paid for. In the spirit of collaboration, and not further tainting the already murky image of the consumer VPN industry, we decided to comp every WeVPN users with free service for the duration of their remaining subscription.

    This is a goodwill gesture only, we're not engaged in any official partnership with WeVPN, and are/were not affiliated with them in any way.

  • by tecleandor on 4/13/23, 8:02 PM

    It's super weird that they've removed the founder's and CEO information from the site, and there is so little information about them on the Internet. Specially when WeVPN founder claims to "have been running" Private Internet Access for years, and there's a blog post saying that he used to be the President for PIA, and some other press releases saying he was the CEO.

    The cache for their "about us" section [0]:

      Jonathan Roudier
  Founder
  
  VPN Experience: 8 years
  
  Jon has nearly a decade of working in the VPN industry originally in Marketing and later in leadership and senior management. With his years of insight and customer knowledge gained from running Private Internet Access®, one of the world's biggest VPN providers, Jon decided to build his own VPN to ensure that the moral and ethics which he holds true are upheld and to provide an industry leader in transparency and accountability. Outside of WeVPN, He enjoys spending time at the gym and watching movies.
    Press release in PIA's blog for when they bought Cypherpunk VPN [1]:

      Private Internet Access President Jon Roudier
    Press release announcing CES sponsor [2]:

      Jonathan Roudier, CEO of PIA, said “We, at Private Internet Access, are so thrilled..."

  0: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:LVfIvHK77E4J:https://wevpn.com/about-us&cd=2&hl=es&ct=clnk&gl=es
  1: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/private-internet-access-london-trust-media-acquired-cypherpunk-vpn/
  2: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20151221005130/en/Private-Internet-Access-Top-Mobile-Sponsor-2016

  • by VWWHFSfQ on 4/13/23, 7:23 PM

    I've never heard of WeVPN but honestly it's a pretty poor name. I would associate it with WeChat and just assume it's for state surveillance.

  • by mardifoufs on 4/13/23, 6:36 PM

    It's weird because the VPN industry is usually portrayed as having high margins (and it makes sense, considering how much money is spent on marketing by various VPN services).

    Is it a case of "winners take all", with smaller players having little revenue and profit? But then again, everyone seems to offer their own vpn now (adguard, blokada, protonmail, etc). Is it just profitable if you offer a bare minimum, almost white labeled service?

    (I guess I have always wondered how and why VPN offering seem to have exploded recently, and how tons of them seem to be able to afford lavish ad spend even with little VC money)

  • by browningstreet on 4/13/23, 7:09 PM

    Running a VPN service nowadays feels kind of like starting a local ISP in the early 90s. How many of those survived?

  • by Trufa on 4/13/23, 7:09 PM

    Have never heard of neither but honestly a pretty good compromise if you ask me.

  • by bananapub on 4/13/23, 8:37 PM

    that's rough, especially for the various law enforcement and intelligence services who lost that collection avenue.

  • by IndigoIncognito on 4/13/23, 7:00 PM

    Windscribe VPN's marketing team is honestly top notch

  • by fuddle on 4/13/23, 9:20 PM

    I did wonder how WeVPN were offering such low prices compared to all other VPN providers. e.g a 2-Year subscription @ $2.59 per month

  • by distracteddev90 on 4/13/23, 9:07 PM

    Was affected by this, and so far, windscribe is a far superior service.

    The transition was seamless.

  • by askura on 4/13/23, 6:30 PM

    Another VPN service bites it.