Comment by daneel_w
3 months ago
To the people using Mullvad I have two sincere and unpopular questions: do you actively scrutinize and examine the key people of every service and product you use, or is it just a reflexive change of footing whenever you happen upon news like this? Also, do you really switch, or is it just a heat of moment kind of thing and an opportunity to profess yourself?
There's nothing wrong with acting on new information as and when it surfaces in your life without obsessively staying up to date with every entity you engage with. That's the reasonable, pragmatic approach to trying to do the right thing without overwhelming yourself with the burden of being perfect.
It's not a gotcha if you're inconsistent from an outsiders perspective, we're all doing the best we can with what little insight we have into reality.
> There's nothing wrong with acting on new information as and when it surfaces in your life without obsessively staying up to date with every entity you engage with.
So you're saying the majority of the people here who say they're leaving Mullvad, have:
1. Not heard of Bezos' funding of the Trump family, or don't use Amazon at all 2. Not heard of Zuckerberg/Meta's [insert countless despicable things here], or don't have Facebook/Instagram/Whatsapp installed at all 3. Not heard of OpenAIs free pass on the Trump administration using their models for war purposes without limitations, or don't use OpenAI at all 4. And so forth?
Clearly, no. Because it has nothing to do with coming across information without obsessively staying up to date with every entity. The same people have come across much of the above information, yet continue not to act on it, despite most of them being magnitudes worse than this case.
Coming across information isn't the same as:
- having the emotional energy reserves left to act on it
- fully understanding the repercussions of the thing
- feeling like your actions in this case will have any affect
- many other reasons you can't stay consistent from an outsiders perspective
You're trying to apply an objective measure of reality to everyone else: if they disagree with X, they must therefore also disagree with Y, otherwise they shouldn't act on X. It's an unreasonable expectation of perfect action.
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>do you actively scrutinize and examine the key people of every service and product you use
Yes
>or it just a reflexive change of footing whenever you happen upon news like this?
No (only when my personal screening didn't already flag it)
>do you really switch
Yes, where it's feasible
> Yes, where it's feasible
I think that's what a lot of people in this thread are missing. There are alternatives to Mullvad, so it's pretty easy to take your money elsewhere if you're unhappy with where it's being spent right now.
The counter-reaction to the reaction is so dumb. If you think it's silly to boycott a company because of a co-founders political donations, fine. But it's just as silly to try to argue people into not boycotting. Live and let live.
There are no alternatives to Mullvad where you _know_ that all of the founders have "better" beliefs than this guy. If you have one, share it.
What proves the point is that someone suggested moving to Proton, whose founder (not even co-founder AFAIK) is outwardly pro-MAGA. And comments calling that out are the ones that get downvoted. This shows people are just pretending to care.
It's not silly to boycott companies in general, but this specific case it's silly. Not because of the reason, but because boycotting only makes sense if it's very likely that an alternative is going to be better in the specific factor that instigates the boycott. In this case, it's not likely, you have no clue whether an alternative is going to have more or less $0.0x of your $1 going to people supporting far-right parties.
Especially when VPN companies are known to be some of the dodgiest tech companies in general. Mullvad is one of the most transparent ones.
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It gives me an excuse to really examine why I started using their product or service and take the time to research alternatives. If the alternative is better, great. If not, what am I willing to lose? Money, convenience, reliability? These are questions you don't want a happy paying customer asking.
Generally speaking, if the mission of a company is privacy and then the actions of the c-suite or founders indicates that they are more than willing to compromise on that, then yes. Why shouldnt you scrutinize people whose product is not aligned with their goals?
And yes I do actively switch products. I left the Windows ecosystem for Linux and I will leave Mullvad for whatever else pops up. So it goes.
When it's about boycotting a product like Bud Light or Mullvad, there are so many equal offers from competitors that it isn't difficult to boycott and switch to another product.
Maybe companies in those kind of markets will simply bite the bullet and start marketing their products as for one side or for the other in politics instead of trying to be for everybody. Then they can lock-in strong goodwill from "their side", and stand on more certain footing. Or maybe most customers do not care as much as online activists.
> do you actively scrutinize and examine the key people of every service and product you use
No.
> is it just a reflexive change of footing whenever you happen upon news like this
Yes.
> do you really switch
Yes.
What is the implication here? That because I did not know that a percentage of the money I give a company went towards supporting a party whose I that I find disgusting, I should keep supporting them now that I do know?
If alternatives exist some of us are willing to make changes to not support the worst of the worst when their behavior is revealed.
I used to like Musk, now I see Tesla and am disgusted. Maybe he was always like this but the personal line for me was the salutes. I’m sure many others have lines as well.
How do you know the political party of the story is "the worst of the worst"? You don't.
I don’t know anything about this tbh I was just answering your general question through my own lens. When someone does something newsworthy and I read about, I adjust, depending on my ethics and whether they align. In general I don’t seem to align with the far right since that mostly seems to be about Supremacy and exclusion and hate. I don’t have interest in those things so I move my support away from things like that.
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You expect to discuss ideas with a mob? :)
It's like the meme of nuclear energy help with climate change and the answer is "I don't want to solutions, I want to abolish capitalism!"
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same here. and the so-called political left is anyway mostly pro surveillance and censorship to curb what they consider fake news or agitation. (so-called b/c the terms left and right are actually pretty meaningless nowadays imo)
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