> Once again, that is an extremely US-centric view.
It's a Canada-centric view, for me. :)
But seriously, does anyone care about VPNs outside of North America? Why would you, if your ISPs aren't awful? Do most VPN services even bother to advertise outside of the North American market?
> This means that said "reputation" is 100% reproducible under a new brand without ever having a single long-term customer vouching for you.
Why pay attention to word-of-mouth reputation, when survival under competitive pressure is a much more objective signal of reputation of its own?
If the bad actors need to restart with a new brand every few years, then why not just look for the oldest brands around (who must therefore have done this the least), and then sort those by the number of negative news articles you can find about them (which should exist, given that they haven't laundered their brand-identity much)?
It's the same thing you do to figure out who to order from on AliExpress: look at who's put themselves out there the longest while doing active business, without accruing negative ratings in the process.
Or, as well, it's the same thing you do when deciding whether it's worth it to try out a new restaurant in your neighbourhood: you give it a few months, and if it's still around, then it's probably good.
It's a Canada-centric view, for me. :)
But seriously, does anyone care about VPNs outside of North America? Why would you, if your ISPs aren't awful? Do most VPN services even bother to advertise outside of the North American market?
> This means that said "reputation" is 100% reproducible under a new brand without ever having a single long-term customer vouching for you.
Why pay attention to word-of-mouth reputation, when survival under competitive pressure is a much more objective signal of reputation of its own?
If the bad actors need to restart with a new brand every few years, then why not just look for the oldest brands around (who must therefore have done this the least), and then sort those by the number of negative news articles you can find about them (which should exist, given that they haven't laundered their brand-identity much)?
It's the same thing you do to figure out who to order from on AliExpress: look at who's put themselves out there the longest while doing active business, without accruing negative ratings in the process.
Or, as well, it's the same thing you do when deciding whether it's worth it to try out a new restaurant in your neighbourhood: you give it a few months, and if it's still around, then it's probably good.