When companies start to focus too much on growth usually they start to lose sight of their values and greed begins to take over. That said I just checked their ad policy and while they do physical ads, it's still a pretty reasonable policy.
They still won't be showing up on random YouTubers videos like Nord
Their CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) is usually very high, just think about it. Aside from the subway ads that have ridiculous costs, they usually offer youtubers the equivalent of a year's subscription for each conversion. They also have to factor in operational costs so they've to keep new customers around for 1,5-2 years to reach break-even, only after that they've profit. Their business is based on a CLV (Customer lifetime value) that greatly exceeds the average for a B2C digital service - in order to survive they're either doing shady stuff with your data OR living of VC hype money.
Yes, but what I said previously applies Their service costs 60€/year. That's about 830 new customers required just to pay the subway ad, do you believe they'll be able to sell 830 new full-year subscriptions a month? I don't believe it. And I'm not even factoring operational costs.
I’ve even seen Duckduckgo billboards and whatnot. If they can afford it, so can Mullvad.
do you believe they'll be able to sell 830 new full-year subscriptions a month?
Yes.
That's really not a lot. LA has 13M people in its Metro area, and 900k weekday riders on the Metro system (not sure about the subway itself, but rail is allot 1/4 to 1/3 of that). VPNs have been getting more popular with ads and sponsorships across social media.
So I absolutely don't think it's unreasonable that they'll pick up ~1k new subscribers per month while this ad campaign runs. I don't know how many users they have (it's antithetical for them to release that), but surely they can afford to run a small campaign like this, just given how many servers they have and some back of the napkin estimates to guess how many users would be needed to justify that number of servers.
Folks are asking "Why post this here?" I get the question but I think I also get the OP, as a New Yorker who was surprised to see this ad IRL.
Most of our subway ads are for VC-funded Internet darlings (think: mattresses-by-mail, kitschy underwear, online therapy) or for some aspiring blockbuster movie from an Internet giant.
Until I saw this ad, I had never in my life seen a subway ad for a company I actually used, let alone respected.
Seeing this ad in the wild broke my brain. I have advocated for online privacy for over a decade. I have spent so much energy pushing people to use Signal. But I had never before imagined that "online privacy" was a concept that could find an audience in mass marketing.
I don't know if Mullvad will take off. But I know that seeing these ads moved me. I felt like maybe, MAYBE, our movement is breaking through.
I saw this on the LA lines as well and it made me very uneasy and concerned.
I went down this road with NordVPN back in the day. There ads popping up everywhere was the beginning of a massive decline in services and questionable privacy practices.
Also Ubuntu and many other open source companies...
I'm love Mullvad, and hope very much this isn't the beginning of the end of one of the few trustworthy VPN's!
I hate ads on the outside of windows. And they give the little pinholes, like that’s supposed to be enough. The world becomes a blur. Out the window is the least anxious place to look on public transport, but they put ads all over the windows, and give us this pinhole grid crap like it makes up for it.
Yes, the wraps are a total bummer for sightseeing!
They are very common in LA though, as not only a means of $$$'s in revenue, but as a cooling measure.
The busses and above ground rail with these wraps are much cooler and easier to AC in the summer
Agreed. There's a slight relief here, though: I believe this is the Times Square shuttle train, which only runs back and forth over a few stations and never goes outside. So at least you're not on this train for long and never missing a view
I mean cities in Texas are very spread out. Subways work well in dense areas, and many parts of Texas just aren't that dense. Here's an article about Austin, and it seems people are more interested now than ever. But I want to point to a mention about Dallas:
Basically, the only reason to go underground in the West is when the city can’t get right of way or has to avoid other infrastructure. Dallas’ DART system is the only urban rail system in the Southwest that can claim a subway station. A three and a half mile section of rail runs underneath the North Central Expressway, in order to avoid the right of way conflicts that would come with going through existing neighborhoods. With urban rail projects dating back two decades, Dallas is ahead of the curve in Texas. But Houston’s getting onboard too, according to one of the city’s recent surveys.
We have something similar in my area (also in the west), surface rail is just way cheaper and good enough. Our population is somewhat spread out, so we use streetcars/trams and adjust the lights and crossings accordingly.
The problem with grade level crossings, even if the lights are adjusted, is always rush hour traffic.
One good example of this is line 512, St Clair W of the TTC. It's a street car on well separated tracks but with many intersections due to it crossing dense neighbourhoods in addition to dedicated left/U turn lanes for 2x1 lanes worth of cars. Despite being only 2x1 lanes, the road being on the E-W makes it a major thoroughfare. The congestion can get so bad that at certain intersections the street car can get stuck for ten minutes or more until the blockage clears.
I don't know Toronto well, but it seems there's a good set of expressways that go around the city, so thru roads could be cut to discourage cutting through the city itself. Replace those with walking and cycling paths and people will likely use the mass transit a lot more.
Basically, anywhere the Metro goes should have limited car traffic. That way a subway isn't needed, walk ability is preserved, and noise downtown would be reduced, making for a much more pleasant downtown.
If cities prioritize cars, trains will be more expensive and slow, and walking will be more dangerous. If cities prioritize either trains or pedestrians, cars are inconvenienced, but trains are cheaper and nicer, and walking is safe. Unfortunately, we in NA picked cars...
