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 pay for Proton, got my Mail Calendar and Drive use cases covered. I pay annually, it’s not a small amount but it’s only once every 2 years (ends up being equivalent to 8 euro a month, 191 euro total).
I use their VPN and SimpleLogin integration. The rest of my use cases are all covered by foss
- 12€/year for a domain incl. backup mx and sending relay for emails
- 10€/year for encrypted backup
- Energy cost of my NAS (unknown yet)
- 48€/year for a ways service
So just under 6€/month + electricity.
- ~$20/year domain name
- €12/year Tutanota mail
- ~$idk yet/year energy costs of a self-hosted server (an old laptop lying around the house) which handles:
- Backup solution
- File hosting
- Wireguard VPN Tunnel
- Other free and open-source services which allow me to own my data locally.
- Sometimes €5 Mullvad VPN for if I’m traveling internationally. Otherwise Tor or my home VPN would suffice.
I pay 1 euro a month for e-mail that I think is secure enough. I think that’s it at present.
1 euro a month? I’m guessing Posteo, Tutanota, Mailbox.org?
Per year, I pay just less than €90. That gets me email, VPN, cloud storage/backup and domains. €7.50pcm is acceptable to me.
