I have been reading about internet privacy for a long time. As time went on, I got a vpn subcription, a custom domain, a paid email hosting, etc. No regrets on the services themselves.
I recently had this conversation with a colleague of mine, complaining about the rising cost of everything including internet subscription services: netflix, spotify, youtube, you name it. I could simply disregard my colleague’s complaints as I didn’t have any of those and know the ways of obtaining materials. However, once I start adding up the privacy related services I’m willingly paying instead… they also add up into a considerable amount.
So, do you pay for anything privacy related, how much do you pay in total, and is it affordable for you? For example, many VPN providers offer yearly subscriptions around 40-50 USD.
I assume what you're getting at is that there has to be an element of trust in that the server being remote you can't be 100% sure it's untampered with?
Much the same rationale can be applied to VPN's, private email, private domain registration. At some point you have to do your research and decide if you trust the provider or not. There are providers out there that allow anonymous renting via Monero payments etc and also allow you to install OS's based on an image you control as oppose to the standard ones they offer. If you combine that with private domain registration and connecting whilst on a good VPN that's much more private than something like GMail.
And yes you could do all that from a home based server but then you're dependant on your ISP always being up etc.
Thank you, I appreciate your non-douchy response