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Comment by unsupp0rted

3 months ago

I’m not Swedish. Does Mullvad do what it says on the tin? That’s all that matters.

The CEO’s extracurricular activities are none of my business.

25 comments

unsupp0rted

Reply
dlgeek  3 months ago

He's not just the CEO, he's a co-owner... Meaning that the profits from the business acrue to him... and therefore enable this party.

So, it's a question of "am I ok paying for this service, knowing that a portion of that money will flow to this political party and how do I feel about the results of that funding?"

  • sunaookami  3 months ago

    How do you feel about providing value to Hacker News, a plattform made by Y Combinator funding several startups, many of them destroying our society and benefiting from mass surveillance? You can do this argument with every company.

    • jackb4040  3 months ago

      I'm not paying to use HN. I'm jaded and opposed to techno-optimism, so if anything by just expressing my honest opinions here I'm wearing away at those startups' power by challenging their most critical base of supporters.

      1 reply →

leokennis  3 months ago

Let's draw this to its ultimate conclusion.

Would you subscribe to an excellent VPN service, if it was run by [insert universally abhorred brutal dictator from history here]?

  • belorn  3 months ago

    We can easier look at conclusion people make about banks and stock options. Will people invest money into index fonds and pension fonds if those fonds invest money into companies that produce and sell weapons to abhorred brutal dictators? What about buying stocks from telecommunication producers who operate in abhorred brutal dictatorships and who helps those dictators to control their population?

    • Aachen  3 months ago

      That's different. Loads of animals will be unhappy if they see others being given something they're not. We have a lottery which 3 million people (in the tiny Netherlands) are subscribed to only because you win as a street, and you won't want to miss out if your street wins right? Can't see your neighbors have more than you for no good reason!

      The feelings of missing out and unfairness are deeply ingrained and stock markets give you stuff. At Mullvad, you buy something instead. If that's a life-essential product you can't otherwise get then the situations would be comparable. There's loads of VPN providers though, maybe not all as good but I would also be considering my options if I were a customer and hear this sort of thing (I'm not a customer of any VPN service). For stock markets and banks, on the other hand: whatcha gonna do, just not have a pension and work until you know roughly how much longer you'll live and that your savings will last till death? Assuming you earn enough to put money to the side in the first place, virtually all options are going to end up being partially invested in things you disagree with. A bank account is a legal requirement here (there's also agreements between the government and some banks to provide basic accounts so you can't be excluded from society like that). I find it much harder to fault people for wanting essentials; the situations are not the same

      1 reply →

  • yaris  3 months ago

    A thought experiment:

    Let's think of the other extreme as well: exactly the same excellent VPN service, is run by an almost-the-best-person-in-the-world who has just one small quirk that makes them not 100% perfect for you (they pat kittens not as often as you'd like them to do). Obviously there is a border between your extreme and mine, which border defines "use" and "no use" cases for you. And now: wherever this border is - should it be the same for everyone?

    • leokennis  3 months ago

      I agree there might be a more or les arbitrary border, and it will probably be in different places for different people.

      However the original statement:

      > The CEO’s extracurricular activities are none of my business.

      Basically says that no border should exist, and it makes no difference at all who provided the service as long as the service itself is excellent.

      That is a fundamentally different argument that I very much disagree with.

    • Dylan16807  3 months ago

      Just like everything else in life, different people have different borders and that's fine.

      I don't understand the point of this thought experiment. Are you trying to disqualify the idea of boundaries because they're imperfect (which is a very flawed argument) or are you going somewhere else I can't figure out at all?

icase  3 months ago

holy shit a sane person

all this “cancel mullvad!” nonsense is 2020 cringe all over again