Conflict of interest note: Windscribe is commercial open source VPN service provider based in Canada.
Why is ProtonVPN lying about running price sensitivity testing on their customers?
Their pricing page gives you one of two prices at random. This is A/B testing, but instead they're saying the price difference is due to remnants of a sale.
Their own code says otherwise.
Price sensitivity testing is when a company quotes different people different prices for the same product to see if sales hold steady at the higher price. Not to be confused with adaptive or dynamic pricing which uses your personal data to adjust prices to you.
People on ProtonVPN's subreddit noticed they were being quoted different prices for the same thing. ProtonVPN's General Manager replied that the differences were due to remnants of a recent sale that wasn't "universally refreshed".
This was a lie, and we have proof.
That proof is their own code sorting every visitor into a price variant. It's labeled right in the HTML tag:
ab-test:VpnHpAndPricingVpnPlusSensibility300726
Which in plain English is:
VPN Homepage and Pricing for the VPN Plus plan, Sensibility test tagged 30/07/26.
The price continues to flip-flop as of writing this. Expired sales don't do this.
Something like a Cloudflare-cached page doesn't add price sensitivity A/B tests to your HTML code.
Proton, if you want to run A/B tests, at least don't lie about it to your users.
Damn, that's fucked up. I think they do a good job overall but their entire fucking marketing team needs to be fired. Constant ads, and now this shit? I only use them because they combine a lot of different services under the same subscription but more and more that seems not worth it...
I guess I should switch to Windscribe...
I left proton last year after realizing I was putting all my shit into one basket again
If you don't mind, what did you end up switching to? And what was your experience with the migration? I am asking because I have been thinking the same for some time now.
Peergos.net for distributed, encrypted cloud storage
Posteo.com for email
Windscribe for VPN
Aegis for authenticator
KeePassXC for passwords
Migrating is always hit or miss on ease. I didn't find it too horrible, but I may not need everything others need.
Proton is a non profit which is why I hope they change the hidden price change strategy.
But then again Open AI was founded as a nonprofit which shows how much that label actually matters.
Proton actually has the exact same structure as OpenAI (and Mozilla), where there is a for-profit company, Proton AG, and a non-profit one, The Proton Foundation. Both of which have done a pretty good job of demonstrating why that doesn't work.
YouTuber Reject Convenience actually believes that Mozilla handles this structure differently and more responsibly than Proton does. I don't know if I follow their reasoning, or give Mozilla a pass, but the video is at least worth checking out if you're curious.
I know it's compelling, but it is not worth putting all your trust in only one location. I mean, you're here on a decentralised network, so I'm sure you get it. And I hate to bear ill news but many developers of good-willed, for-the-people products so frequently betray their patrons' trust that it's also important to keep the ability to move to the next pure initiative.
Ever since I learned that Apple's ecosystem is designed to keep you in by buying everything with them - mainly interoperability - and given the price vs performance is (or WAS, between generations 1-16 of iPhone and every Mac) much lower than every other competitor, I learned that companies attempting a walled-garden were untrustworthy.
Yes and much like here, everything I have in Proton I can export and import elsewhere.
I scored a lifetime Windscribe Pro plan for a really good price almost a decade ago, and never had any complaints about their service.
It felt like a gamble at the time because I had never heard of them, but it has been great to watch them grow in such a positive direction like this over the years.
Yea, I got to agree, I am a paying Proton customer and I really like the product, I like the privacy first, all encryption, I like that they aren't using ads to monetize and I don't mind having a paid account if it supports them having free accounts. Honestly, there is a lot of good things they could be putting out there as great PR for Proton but between this and that French Youtuber this year, this marketing team is striking out left and right.