Black market of VPN

In an independent report, Yektanat pointed to the increase in the use of VPN among people and announced that the annual turnover of buying and selling VPN last year was estimated between 25 and 30 thousand billion tomans. According to this report, 63% of Iranian users with primary education use VPN; That means, two out of three users use filter breakers. The annual report emphasizes that the turnover of VPN last year was estimated at 30 thousand billion tomans and 80% of people in different age and educational groups used VPN to access social networks and messengers in 2022.

disorders; The main reason for the high cost of filter breakers

Frequent blocking of free VPNs has forced users to buy paid filters. Marzieh Adham, an expert in communication sciences and a virtual space activist, told reporters in this regard: “The reason for the increase in the price of VPNs is that the filter breakers that are designed are constantly blocked and must be recreated and made available to users.” On the other hand, the price of production tools and the production process of VPNs are also very expensive.

Referring to the violation of buying and selling VPNs, Adham emphasized:

“The price of maintaining servers has also increased, and creating and selling VPNs is also a crime.” This has caused the price of filter breakers to increase. Although the body overseeing the purchase and sale of VPNs is still unclear, it has been unofficially emphasized many times that the provision and sale of anti-filters is a crime. Customers also face many problems to buy VPNs, including finding ways to communicate with sellers and problems that arise after buying VPNs. Finally, if a cap is placed on the client’s head, he cannot refer to any institution.”

Adham told reporters about the reason why people are turning to buy paid VPNs: “In general, we are highly creative in creating disruption and filtering; So most free VPNs are now filtered and out of order. The filtering list of filter breakers is always being updated. Last year, most people considered the situation to be temporary and thought that Instagram and WhatsApp filtering would be fixed after some time. Therefore, they used short-term solutions. Also, the number of free unblockers was more last year and many of them were still usable, but this year they have been completely blocked.

She added: “Now the flow is structured and organized, and constantly the filter breakers fail. As a result, the quality of free VPNs has decreased to such an extent that they cannot be used. “Many people who used to produce VPNs no longer provide them to the public for free.”

Hidden costs

However, the hidden costs of VPNs are much higher than their direct costs; Because the time, energy and expertise that should be spent on production and innovation are spent on connecting to VPNs. Hamed Bidi, an Internet activist, told “Economist World” about this:

“VPNs, in addition to the direct costs they have for citizens, have indirect and hidden costs for both the people and the government, which are less talked about. One of these hidden costs is the time that citizens spend searching for different VPNs or connecting to VPNs. “The slowness of the Internet also wastes a lot of time of citizens.”

He also added: “Finding alternative VPNs also takes a lot of time from users. This is especially damaging for technology professionals. The tariff difference between domestic traffic and international traffic, which is also a violation of neutrality, and the fact that international traffic is more expensive is a form of obvious discrimination. On the other hand, users have to keep VPNs on continuously, and even internal services are bypassed by VPNs and impose multiple costs on users.

Bidi said about other hidden costs of widespread use of VPNs due to widespread filtering of social networks: “Pervasive disruptions on the network are other hidden costs of VPNs, a large part of which is due to unknown traffic that leaves the country’s borders, and another part due to disruptions is created to prevent the use of VPNs. This will ultimately cause us to experience a more disruptive internet.”

“Another hidden cost is the time professionals spend on VPN provisioning, instead of spending time on more useful and practical products,” he added. Another part of the costs is related to the reduction in cyber security that occurs due to the widespread use of VPNs; Both in mobile phones that are infected with different malware and in the network that is infected and insecure. The result of this network insecurity occurs in various intrusions and hacks, both on a large scale and on an individual basis.

Exorbitant prices and chaotic market

The black market of VPNs has no logical regulation and the seller sets whatever price he wants for VPNs. A VPN seller told the reporter of “Economist World”: “The last price increase happened 4 months ago, and the reason for that was the price increase by the data center. As a result, we had to increase the price. The prices increased from about 80 thousand tomans to about 100 thousand tomans for the volume of 50 gigabytes.

For the volume of 80 gigabytes, the prices went from about 130 thousand tomans to about 150 thousand tomans. Another seller, however, believes that during the past months, VPNs have not increased in price at all. A VPN seller in the west of the capital believes that due to the continuous blocking of proxies, the cost of production and supply of VPNs is constantly increasing, and he has no choice but to increase the cost.

Of course, he believes that people do not have a problem with the cost increase and buy VPN from him from all over the country; Because they are satisfied with the quality and speed of the Internet. This expensive filter seller has increased the price of 50 GB VPNs from 270,000 tomans to 300,000 tomans. Despite all this, citizens have to add the unusual and increasing costs of VPNs to their current costs and consider a fixed place in the household portfolio for accessing the free Internet and foreign social networks.