My honest objective PIA Review

VPN
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Today I learned price increases are “disreputable behavior” :wink:

You said so yourself, PIA has one of the best apps out there, and unique-ish features like split tunnel, dedicated IPs. Why shouldn’t they increase their price? if people are still prepared to pay for it - it’s a good business decision, no? Nothing “disreputable” about it. ExpressVPN is still more expensive, and they don’t even have wireguard, their linux app is trash, and so on. Yes streaming is better, but this isn’t an issue for many users (I use a VPN for security not for streaming)

but it’s also not improved much either. Namely the streaming compatibility still sucks.

No offense, but you’re clearly not keeping up to date. They have a totally new infrastructure they rolled out a couple months ago. Faster servers, multiple servers per region, more locations, geo-located regions, etc. Again, many users don’t use a VPN for “streaming”, i’d hazard a guess that most PIA users are security-focussed power users - that’s why they appreciate advanced featurers like split tunnel, and multiple DNS options.

Reputation is what goes on behind the scene

No it isn’t. It’s just about public perception not about FACT - and often public perception is wrong - and in fact by re-inforcing/re-stating the “reputation is bad” you just reinforce that without giving a company a chance to recover. It’s been a year, and no “disreputable” activities have occurred. Again “price increase” is not “disreputable” :slight_smile:

That is why the system is close to perfect IMO.

I COMPLETELY disagree. If someone is going to choose a VPN most of them will just look at the “top VPNs” in your supposed “tier 1”. End of story. People are lazy and short on time. They likely won’t look into the fact that PIA would absolutely be near the top of tier 1 if it wasn’t for its “reputation” score. And even further, they definitely won’t look into the fact that the supposed “bad reputation” is based on (IMO) - FUD.

Also while we’re talking about your criteria you are missing a glaring one - that is platform support. PIA has BY FAR the best support - having the same powerful GUI app on all 3 major platforms including Linux. PIA even has split tunnel on Linux. Most other VPNs have a terrible Linux app with very limited features. IMO this is far more important than your amorphous “reputation” criterion.

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  1. Lots of people consider price the most important. Some people are poor. Lots of VPN users are teenagers or college students. Don’t be an ass.

  2. I just reviewed it today. The review is more up to date than most reviews lol. The streaming still doesn’t work, and I showed proof in the video. I’ve been reviewing PIA for 5 years, and it has never worked well. I think the CEO even emailed me once that it did, and it didn’t…And yes, PIA has great speeds and application. I rated both 5/5. What’s your point? It’s always had one of the best apps, and always been fast. I give credit to the developers, not the owners who most likely took millionaire dollar salaries.

  3. It’s public perception which is defined and sourced by relevant news articles. If you want to claim “fake news” then go ahead. But you’re the one being silly.

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  1. Yes price is important. Yes some people are poor…still - how is increasing price disreputable behavior? My local chinese restaurant recently increased their price of fried noodles by $2 - is this “disreputable”? Really? If people don’t like the price, they can go somewhere else.
  2. My point is you said nothing much has changed - a totally new infrastructure *IS* a major change, no? New MAJOR app features are major changes no? This all costs money. It does justify the price increase IMO.
  3. “public perception” is also re-inforced by reviews which state the reputation is bad :slight_smile: ---- so it’s a bit circular, no? the reputation is bad, because reviews keep saying it’s bad, which means the reputation remains bad…so reviews keep saying it’s bad…ad infinitum :slight_smile:
27
  1. For the love of god, we’re talking about “disreputable” behavior as a result of Kape acquisition.

That implies underhanded tactics and lying.

A price increase is part of normal business practice, under NO sense of the word is it scandalous or disreputable. No one was scammed, no one was forced to pay more when they didn’t know about it - the price increase was clearly communicated and people can choose or not choose to stay with the company.

  1. You didn’t answer a single one of my points. Your argument was that “nothing has changed, so no price increase was justified”. I explained why this wasn’t true, but in your reply you go off on a tangent about something totally unrelated.

  2. It absolutely is circular. A reputation is bad because people keep propagating the idea the reputation is bad. It’s about public PERCEPTION. If you keep saying it’s bad, then it’ll remain bad.

To reiterate the other guys point, there have been no scandals since the Kape acqusition (a “price increase” is normal business practice). The days of “cross-rider” are well in the past now. Many years ago.

Even the acqusition was a year ago. I believe that even 3 years from now you’ll still be writing “pia has a bad reputation” even when in 3 years there are still no scandals, and still no disreputable behavior.

​

At this point you’re just being stubborn. You don’t listen to ANY feedback.

There’s a reason that NOT A SINGLE OTHER REVIEW SITE uses such a silly criteria as “reputation” - it’s becuase it’s ill-defined, nebulous, and primarly based on public opinion - not on objective fact.

At this point though it’s clear you’re never going to change your mind, so don’t even bother replying. Good evening.

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I’m curious, what would it take for you to improve the reputation score?

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Nothing. Take everything he says with a huge grain of salt. He has special connections with Torguard and is practically an agent for them.

31

Perhaps if Kape sold PIA to another VPN company that is more reputable with a cleaner history. Or, if PIA had never sold in the first place and not done several things that upset the community (associating with members of the crypto community that are not liked, closing the forums, etc etc).

32

LOLOL so bscilly NUTTIN they do cn improve th score unless they sell…das great makes so much sense! LOL