# Do you regularly pay for any privacy-enhancing tools? **URL:** https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/do-you-regularly-pay-for-any-privacy-enhancing-tools/37524 **Category:** General **Created:** 2026-05-01T00:12:18Z **Posts:** 56 ## Post 1 by @NatureFriends — 2026-05-01T00:12:18Z Hi everyone. I have posted here a few times after initially discovering this community on Reddit and I’m a relative beginner to the world of privacy. I read about privacy every day and the importance of fighting for our right to privacy and use stay away from the established social media platforms and use tools/apps like Signal and Ente and use LibreWolf/Tor/Brave for browsers and Proton Mail (free) for email and pay for a VPN. But I’ve also seen many of these services offering paid tiers with more storage, aliases and a variety of other benefits. I’m considering some paid plans for email and storage services and they do seem [ratty reasonably priced, but they’re also more subscriptions in a world full of subscriptions. So I’m asking you whether you believe paying for ensuring privacy is a good thing (especially if you’re paying smaller companies with good ethics) or if you believe we should all have a right to privacy for free? --- ## Post 2 by @PaleCrow55 — 2026-05-01T00:29:33Z > [@NatureFriends](#): > > a right to privacy for free? “Right to privacy for free” and “right to have others run a private service free for you at their own cost and detriment” are not the same thing. > [@NatureFriends](#): > > paying for ensuring privacy This isn’t “paying for ensuring privacy,” it’s paying for an online service that requires money and other resources to sustain itself. Some services have you “pay” by selling your usage data to shady advertisement agencies. A service that respects your privacy doesn’t have that option, so you might instead pay with your own money directly. --- ## Post 3 by @DylanDuck — 2026-05-01T00:41:44Z Sure. But only on a need to basis. The economy is not there for me to throw token gestures, also I have the privilege of not having a severe threat model so I get by with most free offerings. So to enumerate what I currently pay for: - VPN. Free doesn’t cut it, whether it’s lack of control over features / servers or small data caps. - Storage. Need quick ways to pool resources with family so it’s worth it. - Note taking. This one is a bit of a luxury I have to admit. But free options are very limiting. That’s it, aliases and email, among other things I manage within free tiers. --- ## Post 4 by @NatureFriends — 2026-05-01T00:47:05Z Good points. That’s why I included in a parenthetical at the end of my post about supporting smaller companies with good ethics. If it’s for a good cause and helps hardworking people who don’t harvest your data, then it sounds good. However, another part of it for me is that what if in the long run companies like this that I’m financially supporting now one day become a Google or Microsoft-sized corporation, or what if these big corporations take notice of these smaller companies promoting right to privacy and try to take them down if they become too big, with large user bases? Proton already has allegedly around 100 million users and where are they in 5-10 years? But if we’re talking about right now, I’m asking this question because I feel good about helping these smaller, emerging companies championing the right to privacy. --- ## Post 5 by @anon83991330 — 2026-05-01T10:52:15Z I wish we would live in a world where the right to privacy wouldn’t cost you any money. But the world evolved into the state of ad-supported services, user profiling and survelliance, where pricacy-focused services - if actually acting accordingly to it - won’t have a chance if their services are not paid for, and that’s what i think more people need to understand. They can’t rely on unreliable income like donations or grants. Especially for services i use everyday, like my search engine (Kagi), my email (Tuta), my cloud storage plus encryption software (Filen and Cryptomator) and email aliases (addy), i want to ensure that they can keep pursuing their goal while i get a good product that isn’t interested in me as another way to profit. The only downside of this approach is for people with low income or who are fed up of subscriptions. That’s where i wish we would have a base level access to privacy-focused services and gladly some provide that. Regarding the hypothetical about Proton: Nothing stops a company from going downhill unfortunately. Proton can turn into Google or Microsoft at any point of the time. That’s where you have to think if you give this company enough trust that they won’t do that. --- ## Post 6 by @walrus932 — 2026-05-01T12:37:39Z The fact remains that nothing is free, even self-hosting from your home (as opposed to renting a VPS) has an upfront cost (hardware) and ongoing cost (electricity) not counting your personal time as a cost. Such is life and the world we live in. You can call food a human right like privacy, but food still costs money because the labour to produce and deliver it must be compensated. I’m much more comfortable paying for a service with money than with my data, be it self-hosted or not. --- ## Post 7 by @tooinfinity — 2026-05-01T13:01:00Z We have the right to privacy for free, but the system has been built to take it from us for profit. So now we DO need to pay for something, especially if we want the tools we rely on to stick around long term. I personally pay for password/alias management. VPN and storage. But I also use a ton of free tools that I am very grateful for --- ## Post 8 by @arise1984 — 2026-05-01T13:50:10Z I paid for domain name, alias service, password manager, vpn. Ideally I’d want to pay for more service but living in 3rd world country with 3rd world wages made too many 1st world rate subscription aren’t sustainable for myself so i just limit myself to that 5. Occasionally i donate some small amounts to signal, eff etc but its rare. --- ## Post 9 by @Cobson — 2026-05-01T14:10:51Z I do pay for a Proton Family subscription and I’m quite happy with it. It’s fairly priced for what it is and provides good value to me. > [@NatureFriends](#): > > So I’m asking you whether you believe paying for ensuring privacy is a good thing Not necessarily, if you want to support these companies or projects then sure, but a lot of people will be ok with using free alternatives. > [@NatureFriends](#): > > or if you believe we should all have a right to privacy for free? Companies should respect our privacy by default without us having to pay any extra money, that’s for sure. I don’t expect privacy-first companies (Mullvad, Proton, Mozilla…) to provide products and services free of charge. --- ## Post 10 by @trilobyte — 2026-05-01T14:26:13Z Subscribe to the thing you actually need, is within your budget, and that provides an ongoing service. You can pay for one year and cancel if you don’t want reocurring subscriptions. This seems easy enough to me. It’s no different than paying for anything else. I don’t subscribe to services I won’t use or that are outside my budget, but this is specific to my needs and income. Other people should act according to theirs. I also wouldn’t necessarily stick to free tier if it’s sufficient, in the same way I wouldn’t go to a grocery store to eat the free samples while planning to leave without buying anything. Even if they are a nonprofit who say the samples are there as a service to the community (like Proton), you want there to continue to be not only samples there but also a store in general. We established it’s a needed service, after all. If I suddenly got a lot more money then I would subscribe to a lot more than I do now, but as things are I am thankful for the free tiers. --- ## Post 11 by @ThePrivacyDad — 2026-05-01T16:04:22Z I pay for Tuta Mail and pCloud for storage. I’m also currently paying Forward Email to be able to send out a newsletter for my blog from my domain name. I also pay for Uruky search engine atm, because I like their attitude and because they are a small team trying to set something up for privacy. I host Nextcloud myself, and that saves a lot of money on tools I use. I pay for Standard Notes too, and Mullvad VPN. It sounds like a lot, but these are small amounts per year. --- ## Post 12 by @Throwaway — 2026-05-01T21:20:00Z I pay for a VPN but don’t use it that often except for hopping over geofences. --- ## Post 13 by @lyricism — 2026-05-01T21:31:18Z I love paying for privacy services. Even if there’s a free plan with all the features I need I often go out of my way to pay for a higher tier to support the business (assuming it’s relatively inexpensive to do so). I can’t imagine enjoying a relatively unique service ideologically aligned with me on a topic I care about and being unwilling to pay for it. --- ## Post 14 by @FranklyFlawless — 2026-05-02T01:58:55Z To address your main question only: > [@NatureFriends](#): > > Do you regularly pay for any privacy-enhancing tools? If you consider a dedicated server where I self-host, administrate, and maintain all of my own services as regularly paying (using cryptocurrencies) for a privacy-enhancing tool, than yes, otherwise no. --- ## Post 15 by @trilobyte — 2026-05-02T03:50:15Z My true answer to the thread title is that I can only shamefully admit I have a NordVPN subscription that expires this year. I am considering moving to Mullvad, as the pricing is very reasonable. I managed to get a simple home LAN server set up too. It has vaultwarden, searxng, syncthing, and some other stuff running in containers. I’m hoping the electricity cost here is minimal. Email and VPN are the ones I can’t home host for obvious reasons. I’m considering going with posteo for email, but proton free is better in some ways like security. Duckduckgo aliases have been good enough that I wouldn’t want to migrate away from them either. Therefore NordVPN is the only subscription I actually have, but I sank some time and money into realizing the home server. --- ## Post 16 by @WhyRhy — 2026-05-02T09:07:01Z > [@NatureFriends](#): > > So I’m asking you whether you believe paying for ensuring privacy is a good thing (especially if you’re paying smaller companies with good ethics) or if you believe we should all have a right to privacy for free? These are great questions but quite complex to answer. You _shouldn’t_ have to pay for privacy but it’s the model we have since the dawn of the internet. **Nothing is _free_**. You pay for it with your data soul or you pay in cold hard money. What you can’t **expect** is organisations that employ devs, their expertise and their time to do this for free. Thats simply not how it works. They provide a solution to a problem. It costs money - whether that’s one-off fees, subscriptions or donations. I don’t go to work for free, so why should others? In an ideal world, by design, everything would be focussed on privacy. We don’t live in an ideal world - far from it. Arguably, taking privacy ethics aside, the likes of Google/Alphabet and Meta have done ‘good’ by employing so many people and contributing to the economy. They offer many services seemingly for “_free_” because the people are the product. The likes of Proton (as one example) simply can’t do that. The two models are entirely different. So: yes. This is also why I voluntarily donate to Signal. Because, if I don’t, I run the risk of it no longer being viable to use later on. Will the governments around the world subsidise and contribute to privacy-focussed functions including e2ee and heavily regulate cryptocurrencies? Absolutely not. For obvious reasons that they’re all fighting to end e2ee and watch your financials so they can control you even more. Some countries are trying to get rid of cash, so no wonder they don’t like Monero. I’m happy to pay which, in turn, allows some organisations to provide free limited functions to those who can’t afford it so at least they can have _some_ privacy. And this is where it becomes rather complex as we enter socioeconomics which is an entirely different conversation… --- ## Post 17 by @DanielM — 2026-05-02T10:13:09Z I agree with this comment. I’d like to add the following: there are VPN services that offer 2-year plans at a very steep discount off the original price, which suggests that this isn’t the best deal and is a sign that they’ve got you hooked. “Got you hooked” means → you’re an easy target. Mullvad VPN, for example, has a more reasonable and fair price; you pay for what you need. --- ## Post 18 by @EnTaro — 2026-05-02T11:04:24Z - Mullvad VPN (Top-up Monthly) - Proton Mail Plus (Yearly) - Ente Photos (Yearly) --- ## Post 19 by @trilobyte — 2026-05-02T12:45:46Z > I agree with this comment. I’d like to add the following: there are VPN services that offer 2-year plans at a very steep discount off the original price, which suggests that this isn’t the best deal and is a sign that they’ve got you hooked. “Got you hooked” means → you’re an easy target. > > Mullvad VPN, for example, has a more reasonable and fair price; you pay for what you need. This is an underrated aspect with many services. Trying to optimize sales for everything takes up a lot of mental bandwidth. That can lead to mistakes like forgetting to unsub or to decisions like staying subbed only because you weren’t in place to make a fair comparison to other services during your renewal month. Much may have changed a lot after a multi year sub. It also leads to a mindset where you are trying to extract as much value as possible, which isn’t the same as making the best overall choices for oneself or the world. The mindset makes it a lot easier for amazon, walmart, nordvpn, etc to manipulate you though. Even Proton does some of the questionable tactics, with their big sales for new users only who will pay full price once they have had enough time to migrate everything over. --- ## Post 20 by @DanielM — 2026-05-02T13:48:27Z In case of forgetfulness or excessive mental effort, there are personal notes on physical paper, not digital. It’s more productive, accessible, and unencrypted (unless you have your own mental encryption codes that are unreadable to others based on your handwriting). That’s why the phrase “consume, consume, obey” exists—to broaden access (reach) to as many people as possible worldwide. Sometimes it’s better to buy directly from the supplier rather than from third parties, but that’s not always the case. Proton AG is already inconsistent on its own. I’m becoming increasingly suspicious of this company. --- ## Post 21 by @anonymous549 — 2026-05-02T14:16:33Z > [@NatureFriends](#): > > So I’m asking you whether you believe paying for ensuring privacy is a good thing (especially if you’re paying smaller companies with good ethics) or if you believe we should all have a right to privacy for free? Do I believe that privacy should be a commodity that I need to purchase? In a perfect world, no. It should be an inalienable right, just as clean food, fresh water, and shelter should be. Sadly we don’t exist in a perfect world. Do I believe all privacy preserving tools should be free as in beer? No. People work hard to make these tools and deserve to be compensated. --- ## Post 22 by @JibJab — 2026-05-03T18:53:50Z I believe in making recurring annual contributions to projects that improve my daily security, privacy and anonymity . [Linux Mint](https://linuxmint.com/donors.php) Proton mail & VPN [GrapheneOS](https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=2S2BP8V4E7PXU) [KEEPASS password manager](https://keepass.info/donate.html) [AEGIS authenticator](https://buymeacoffee.com/beemdevelopment) [THUNDERBIRD email client](https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/donate/) [FUTO keyboard](https://docs.keyboard.futo.org/about?highlight=purchase#your-keyboard-shouldnt-connect-to-the-internet) --- ## Post 23 by @overdrawn98901 — 2026-05-03T19:12:42Z Yes. If corporations are able to offer a free service without you paying for the money, that doesn’t mean no revenue is made. 1. A non profit relying on grants and donations (Signal) 2. You paying for their service (Proton) 3. Freemium with paid Enterprise (not as frequent, but WinRar is a classic example, and Obsidian before they made it free to use for all) 4. Freemium with upgrade to better tiers (Obsidian - free local use, paid online backup) 5. Surveillance capitalism (social media, by and large) 6. Bait & Switch / Embrace Extend Extinguish (free now, or at a loss, but free lunch doesn’t come forever, looking at ChatGPT and AI is today) And these are not necessarily a discreet set, plenty of these can be happening at the same time. If you aren’t sure where the money comes from, then you should be questioning if you are the product, and if that matters for you. --- ## Post 24 by @brn — 2026-05-03T20:09:10Z I personally steer away from “free” services, and have for a while. Email, VPN, Browser, OS, Backups, even if I can get them for free, I’ll pay for them with recurring donations or by subscribing to “pro tiers”. It can add up if you don’t have a job or have trouble making ends meet, so ideally, privacy should be provided for free, and by default, but unfortunately that’s not really easy or possible in many real-world scenarios. --- ## Post 25 by @Sojourn — 2026-05-04T01:15:28Z I agree. People have become way too spoiled with free apps and such, and act like being asked to pay for software is some sort of front. The people outting all the work into that software have families to support too! --- ## Post 26 by @smalltech — 2026-05-04T10:48:04Z mullvad VPN - monthly iodéOS Premium - yearly njal.la (private domain name) - yearly disroot nextcloud - yearly (donation) --- ## Post 27 by @asd99898h4 — 2026-05-07T19:47:42Z i keep the amount I pay minimal. most of what you can do in terms of privacy is related to opsec and not the paid tools you use. top of my head, pay for a vpn, mail, domain & that’s it. --- ## Post 28 by @notwithstanding — 2026-05-07T23:04:26Z I won’t say which tools, but I spend about $30/mo on privacy / online services. --- ## Post 29 by @Aflame-Blighted — 2026-05-08T03:37:14Z $287.76USD for 24 month Proton Duo. Hopefully some other Cloud Storage providers mature in the meantime. --- ## Post 30 by @anon32735431 — 2026-05-08T05:07:03Z I pay for Mullvad. Beyond just privacy it’s useful for accessing geo-restricted content and services and using Youtube without an account these days. I also support GrapheneOS and Signal with donations when I can. --- ## Post 31 by @Quantum — 2026-05-08T13:29:31Z I pay for Proton Mail Plus, iCloud+ w/ADP, IVPN, and Signal Backups (previously I just donated to Signal). If we don’t financially support privacy services then eventually we won’t have them. Nothing is free. Privacy is worth paying for. --- ## Post 32 by @Machkiel — 2026-05-11T12:42:08Z I operate a Tor relay and regularly donate to the Tor Project. --- ## Post 33 by @Sraars — 2026-05-11T13:46:24Z I pay for quite a few or donate as I’d like to keep them operating and/or hopefully remove the need to become scummy. --- ## Post 34 by @Beepstek — 2026-05-11T14:05:39Z Yeah, let’s go! I ponder for a while before committing to a service. _What would my realistic use case be, what would I actually benefit from?_ Listing pros and cons, wondering what I have spent time on in the past, would I like to dabble in this or that, what do I already have, what I don’t, and comparing services with each other. Sitting on not pulling the trigger on a subscription for some time. **I didn’t** , for example, take the **Tuta Legendary deal** of 3€ annual subscription. _I just don’t need all of that._ That is on taking a stance against going for stuff I do not need, even if it’d be an amazing deal. I pay for **Proton VPN (VPN+)** and **Tuta (Revolutionary)** and I tend to get a lot of usage out of the services I pay for. Up front it can be a hit for the budget, but spread around months, the monthly cost of the services ends up being 2.147€ + 3€. **Notesnook (Essential, 1.78€)** could be the next one I pay for since I get a lot of use out of it, and would benefit from the paid offerings. Keeping these guys around is a great thing. _Support the ones who’s mission you believe in_, I tend to say. Haven’t donated, yet, but some day I will. I believe this, because I’m exactly the kind of person to help others! Some additional things that I’ve given energy to think through: > **Cudy** devices with **openWRT** support, so I can degress to using the router of a service provider as a bridge. _Pi-hole, advanced internet settings, new stuff to learn, more secure (updates), more private, yay!_ **Cudy** is a simple option since they support **openWRT** [openly](https://www.cudy.com/collections/openwrt), and they are not that expensive, and are well available. They have some shenanigans going on with differentiating between _v1 and v2_ _(you have to ask the store which one it is)_. This is an issue because currently only the v1 (WR3000 -line) supports **openWRT**. :money_with_wings: _(one could get a **Cudy** for a one time payment of 45-65€)_ > Install **Linux** _(insert some Intermediate friendly distro X)_ on my old laptop and run services with that. Naturally, if that’s up and running I miraculously have a new world on my hands: the world of self-hosting. I could do so much! :money_with_wings: _(power costs of an inefficient-ish (i5 CPU 35w TDP) laptop from around 2010)_ --- ## Post 35 by @trilobyte — 2026-05-11T17:25:50Z I seemingly lied about not being host email myself. I got podman stalwart running on an oracle cloud free instance, have everything PGP encrypted with my secret key never having touched the server, uploaded a disk encryption key to oracle (I think this means they can decrypt still?), and have been using their relay service to send emails. From what I can tell, oracle relay does not store or data mine the outgoing emails, but I’m looking into if I can get a free ipv6 tunnel set to send emails. Oracle blocks outgoing port 25 and I haven’t been able to get in contact with anyone to unblock it, nor is it clear they would be willing to do so. I figure, if I get the ipv6 tunnel working, I could at least send from ipv6 to an alias service, but it’s possible I could get gmail to accept an ipv6 address. Unfortunately tuta, proton, and some places like yahoo and AOL accept ipv4 only. It’s been enlightening, but, once my $7 domain expires I might just get a [mailbox.org](http://mailbox.org) address to forward to a locally hosted email server. If I’m having to rely on smtp relay for outgoing emails then I might as well get the privacy respecting email for $12 to act as both inbound and outbound relay. The oracle relay is 100% reliable however and allows 100 free emails per day, which is more than I’ll send. What surprises me is that I think my emails might actually be more secure this way than a pro service. I am not more skilled than them, but I’m able to lock things down and monitor to an extent they can’t. I’m the only user I have to worry about, after all, while I can use the very latest software without having to migrate any old data. I’m not sure I could sustain this level of attention for potentially decades though. --- ## Post 36 by @Carey — 2026-05-11T18:41:49Z I agree with many responses here. And yes, I definitely pay for privacy-respecting services, for many of the same reasons I’ve seen here. But I also wanted to add that not only does paying for private services cover the undeniable costs of the service, but it also supports companies who are doing the right things. And I think others have said that. Something I don’t think has been said, which is related but important, is that it also establishes a clear market for privacy-respecting products. People will pay for privacy… build it and they will come. Ideally, privacy is the default and so you’re just paying for the service because the service costs money to develop and to run. Privacy should be a given, so in that sense, you’re not paying for privacy per se, you’re paying because the service can’t be run for free. I will say that it’s good to have a limited free tier, like Proton has, to get people to try it - and to make it available on some minimum level for people who can’t afford it otherwise. It’s basically subsidized by higher-tier users who subscribe - or sometimes by the enterprise version of something, and they give it away for personal use. But that’s not always possible. --- ## Post 37 by @apt_dumps — 2026-05-12T13:07:11Z I pay for: - Proton Unlimited - MullvadVPN - Tutanota Legend Each of these services offers exceptional value for the price in my opinion. We are often cynical about the state of today’s internet (and for good reasons), but I think it’s important to also acknowledge that there are companies and individuals still fighting for a safe, secure and private web. Every dollar going to these services is 100% worth it! --- ## Post 38 by @randomperson — 2026-05-12T14:38:49Z I do pay for my email provider and support Signal with a monthly donation. I also run a lot of digital infrastructure myself on my own servers at home and I’m paying rent for some virtual private servers in a data center. Free services that are not supported by donations are always “bait”. At best, they exist to allow people to try a service and pay when they start relying on it; at worst, they turn the user into the product or combine both revenue models. The question “should service X be free“ is a naive question. For any service somebody has to pay. The only question is: Who and how? --- ## Post 39 by @Aruba — 2026-05-12T19:11:12Z I paid for FUTO Voice from FUTO organization. I still pay for Firefox Relay since it’s debut. Though personally I avoid supporting organizations like Mozilla that I find are Far Left activist with disgusting taste/views. On top of how the corporation has handled Firefox over the last 5 or so years where theyve tried to be more like Chrome in the least best ways and ignored or treated their longtime OG users. However, Im already ingrained and huge procrastinator so havent migrated to something either more neutral and that is more fiscally responsible. I also paid for Ghostery Add-On at one point but I think it is at some point felt it not really needed over other toolsets that can do their same job. I regularly pay for a variety of VPNs but of course. That’s a given. Although Id say I have a mix of regular and privacy-focused ones depending on content im shooting for. I used to pay for NextCloud DNS but the devs just let it languish for several years that I stopped, but luckily for me there is not shortage of DNS solution out there. I pay for several AdGuard products as I use including their regular suite of AdGuard products with a family plan license. As I use it on the majority of my phones or for my routers and I dont have a souped up custom router yet and Im too procrastinate-y to use that RaspPi2/3 I bought many 5 years ago for Pi hole. These arent payments but I regularly donate to projects: I’ve donated to an instance of the Invidious a few times but I dont heavily rely on Invidious to be honest. I just like that someone kept theirs up reliably for times that I did need it. Ive donated more than a number of times to NewPipe. It pretty much is my replacement for Youtube especially on older devices. Ive donated to Aurora Android Store because it’s cool. So yeah I think those that have money are not opposed to paying for certain things if the price is reasonable and the ability to give that money is viable (ie some thing Ive wanted to donate/pay for only accepted crypto….which I dont use) --- ## Post 40 by @Average_Joe — 2026-05-13T17:31:36Z > [@NatureFriends](#): > > I have posted here a few times after initially discovering this community on Reddit and I’m a relative beginner to the world of privacy. I appreciate this thread. So much good information posted already… I’ll be sure to check back again! --- ## Post 41 by @ch0ccyra1n — 2026-05-13T18:28:34Z just SimpleLogin and two domains that I happen to use with it. I tend to be a bit of a miser I suppose. I do share a plan for Proton with a family member who pays for it, but I only use it for calendar and pass, the former at least I want to move to my own self-hosted calendar. --- ## Post 42 by @M-A9NPV — 2026-05-16T13:46:47Z Just curious how much others are spending each year for privacy focused apps and services? I think right now, I’m paying for: - Proton Unlimited - $119.88/yr - Notesnook - $45.96/yr ($3.83/month locked in) - Ente Photos - $119.88/yr - Paralino - $64.99/yr I think that’s all I pay for. How about you? --- ## Post 43 by @DanielM — 2026-05-16T14:08:21Z Even though I’ve mentioned this before, I’ll say it again: I spend 0 pesos and use the tools for free. --- ## Post 44 by @Acephali — 2026-05-17T00:01:26Z > [@PaleCrow55](#): > > This isn’t “paying for ensuring privacy,” it’s paying for an online service that requires money and other resources to sustain itself. Thats really the point for me too. Therefore i am paying for my E-mail Provider([Posteo.de](http://Posteo.de)) and my VPN (Mullvad). And also for my VPS where i Host most of the privacy Stuff (Ente Photos & Anytype) my self. Also i make annual contributions to projects i use all year. --- ## Post 45 by @anonymous568 — 2026-05-17T01:03:54Z > [@NatureFriends](#): > > you believe we should all have a right to privacy for free? Rights are not paid for. > [@NatureFriends](#): > > you believe paying for ensuring privacy is a good thing Would I recommend paying for a privacy-respecting service when it suits your threat model and does what you want it to do? Yes. But does that depend on your financial situation? Of course, obviously. Is it a “good thing” to have to pay for that? No.. Privacy is a human right. Keep in mind that this forum may be biased. The Privacy Guides community was built from internet users recommending others privacy-respecting tools and services, _both_ free and paid, so of course there’s gonna be a lot of people here who says to buy. --- ## Post 46 by @libertarian — 2026-05-17T01:17:45Z I subscribe to Proton Unlimited and have also donated to projects like Session and KeePass. I believe that paying and donating are essential to keeping these services running. Some argue that privacy is a right and therefore should be free, but that is a misleading oversimplification. While privacy is a right, you are not entitled to someone else’s labor. Consider that food and shelter are also fundamental rights, yet no one seriously argues that a farmer must grow crops or a builder must construct a home and simply give them to you for free. We recognize that rights require infrastructure, and that infrastructure requires sustainable funding. --- ## Post 47 by @privacylover — 2026-05-17T03:38:34Z > [@DanielM](#): > > Even though I’ve mentioned this before, I’ll say it again: I spend 0 pesos and use the tools for free. And what tools are those? Not all tools are free, VPNs for example, the free ones have limits. You can use them for free but you will never have the same speed as paid ones. --- ## Post 48 by @privacylover — 2026-05-17T03:40:59Z > [@JibJab](#): > > I believe in making recurring annual contributions to projects that improve my daily security, privacy and anonymity . I find it a little surprising that you donate Linux Mint and include Keepass which is a Windows only application, the Linux version of Keepass is [KeePassXC](https://keepassxc.org/), it is your money donate it to whoever you want but I was curious why pick the Windows project over the Linux one when you appear to use Linux. --- ## Post 49 by @Quantum — 2026-05-17T05:23:07Z I think you are confusing two things. The existence of the right to privacy vs the specific expression or way someone exercises that right. You do not have to pay for the _right of privacy._ But you may have to pay for how you express or use that right. The ultimate privacy is to just be offline. That is free. Similarly I could exercise my right of free speech by holding a sign in my front yard. That’s free too. But if I want an email service to use, which requires programmers and servers, for exercising my privacy right; then I need to pay for that. Similarly if I want to exercise my free speech right by attending a protest in another city I need to pay for my transportation to get there. I’m not owed gasoline or a plane ticket. Just like no one is owed a VPN. --- ## Post 50 by @JohnDose — 2026-05-17T11:14:34Z I’m aware that good softwares/tools for privacy doesn’t just fall from the sky; it requires extensive effort and contribution from many people. In addition to those that mandate payment(such as VPNs, cloud storages, etc), I also donate to projects that are completely free to use. I especially appreciate VeraCrypt, KeepassXC, and GrapheneOS for generously sharing their software for free. Couldn’t imagine my privacy-life without those. --- ## Post 51 by @JibJab — 2026-05-17T15:20:34Z I install LM for friends and family but am still transitioning off MS myself. --- ## Post 52 by @Roast — 2026-05-17T21:20:14Z If a product is free, then there’s a good chance I am the product. I don’t like that. There are plenty of cases where that is not true though. GrapheneOS, Signal, NewPipe, Fossify, [Tasks.org](http://Tasks.org), Aegis, OrganicMaps etc. - but in order to live in a world, where I don’t wanna be the product, I have to support in anyway I can. That’s why I donate to all the products listed above and also pay for a subscription for Proton, Notesnook and Mullvad. Pay with your money, not your private life. If we all did a little, it would have a huge impact! --- ## Post 53 by @camp — 2026-05-17T21:54:08Z - Mullvad - Proton - Multiple SIM cards bought prepaid cash only so I can use these devices to create burner accounts for various identities. - Mailboxes and addresses associated with various LLCs and corporations in different jurisdictions. - Security deposit boxes and self storage rentals in various jurisdictions for offline backups. --- ## Post 54 by @WhyRhy — 2026-05-17T22:47:57Z > [@camp](#): > > Multiple SIM cards bought prepaid cash only so I can use these devices to create burner accounts for various identities. May I ask: why you buy multiple SIM cards “prepaid cash only” but use the same device? Although I do not know your threat model, this doesn’t add up? --- ## Post 55 by @camp — 2026-05-17T23:02:04Z Its not the same device. Several different devices (with different SIM cards) used for different identities. Each SIM card is linked with a separate alias. Correlation of these aliases would have serious consequences. The devices are never allowed to connect cell phone towers from the same location to prevent cell tower tracking, and I never use alias devices from my house. --- ## Post 56 by @wslyvh — 2026-05-19T12:06:56Z I pay for various services and products. It’s not necessarily always about paying for privacy, but building good products takes time/effort. I appreciate projects that do not sell me out, use me, or my data for their own benefits. And I’d rather pay for smaller, indie, or dedicated teams working on products they care about than big-tech/corps I do not feel aligned with. Few I’ve been using for a while are Mullvad (VPN), Proton (Email + calendar), Tresorit (storage), Notenooks (notes), but also pay for services like Plausible (analytics) when building my own projects instead of relying on e.g. Google