I actually work in cyber security and I was really happy Tom Scott released that video. VPN companies are some of the scummiest companies out there, and their rampant sponsorships on YouTube were shameless misinformation and fear mongering in order to scare you into giving all your internet traffic to them. Seeing so many sellout tech YouTubers take their sponsorships despite knowing better COUGH NetworkChuck, was one of my biggest pet peeves.

There are seemingly legit VPN companies out there, and there are some legitimate use cases for them, but what Tom is addressing are the shady ones that lie to you about what they’re for and how they help you for their own monetary and in some cases data mining benefit. In most cases you do not need a VPN, and it doesn’t do anything to protect you from “internet criminals”, or provide extra “security” and it only “protects” your privacy by shifting the for-profit company that gets to see all the websites you visit.

I too would like to know why you think a VPN is needed “on today’s web”, I would bet money it came directly out of one of theirs ads scripts.