ALL INPredictions
Last updated Nov 29, 2025
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Jason @ 00:33:05Wrong
tech
In the near term (around the early‑to‑mid 2020s), the market will see widespread availability and consumer uptake of bundled privacy suites (combining VPNs, private search engines, and privacy‑focused browsers) priced on the order of $20–30 per month as mainstream offerings.
You can do it for 25 bucks a month, you know, 2 or 300 bucks a year, which is a big number for maybe the average Joe, but it's, it's it's being packaged and bundled right now so that you're seeing the VPNs, the anonymous search engines, the browsers all starting to bundle. They're bundling a set, a suite of services. And so I think this is upon us now and consumers get it and they want to protect their privacy.View on YouTube
Explanation

Evidence from 2022–2025 shows that some bundled privacy offerings did emerge, but they did not become $20–30/month mainstream products with broad consumer uptake as described.

1. Bundled privacy suites do exist, but are niche

  • Proton launched Proton Unlimited, a single subscription that bundles encrypted email, calendar, cloud storage, password manager, wallet, and Proton VPN in one plan, marketed as a privacy‑by‑default ecosystem.
    • Price: about $12.99/month on a monthly basis or $9.99/month when billed annually.
    • It’s explicitly pitched as a bundle replacing separate Mail+VPN plans. (proton.me)
  • Mozilla created a Firefox Relay + Mozilla VPN bundle at $6.99/month (billed annually), a discounted privacy/security package. (9to5mac.com)
  • Brave offers a built‑in VPN integrated in the Brave browser for $9.99/month, with Brave Search Premium (ad‑free private search) at $3/month as a separate subscription; both can be combined but are not sold as a single $20–30 "suite". (brave.com)
  • DuckDuckGo launched Privacy Pro, a bundle integrated into its privacy browser/search that includes a VPN, personal‑data broker removal, and identity theft restoration for $9.99/month. (macrumors.com)
  • Traditional security suites (Norton 360, Bitdefender Ultimate Security, etc.) bundle antivirus, VPN, password managers, and identity protection at consumer price points, further confirming a bundling trend. (tomsguide.com)

So, the supply‐side part (vendors offering privacy/security bundles) did materialize, but that alone doesn’t satisfy the prediction’s stronger claim about mainstream consumer behavior and $20–30 pricing.

2. Pricing is generally below the predicted $20–30/month range

  • Proton Unlimited: about $12.99/month (or ~$10/month on annual billing). (proton.me)
  • DuckDuckGo Privacy Pro: $9.99/month. (macrumors.com)
  • Brave VPN: $9.99/month; Brave Search Premium (ad‑free private search) $3/month. Even combined, this is around $13/month, not $20–30. (brave.com)
  • Mozilla VPN + Firefox Relay bundle: $6.99/month (annual). (9to5mac.com)
  • A large 2025 VPN usage study finds the median paid VPN spend is about $10/month, with most paid plans falling in the $2–$15/month range. (security.org)

Higher‑end security bundles (e.g., NordVPN’s top "Prime" tier or identity‑theft + credit‑monitoring suites) can approach or exceed $20/month, but the typical consumer privacy/VPN bundle is much closer to $7–13/month. The core pricing expectation of $20–30/month as the norm for average consumers has not played out.

3. Consumer uptake of these bundled suites is not “widespread mainstream”

  • Overall VPN usage in the U.S. is meaningful but not dominant: a 2025 representative survey finds 32% of U.S. adults use a VPN, down from 46% in 2023; about 75 million Americans use VPNs. Most Americans (68%) either don’t use a VPN or don’t see the need. (security.org)
  • That same report shows users gravitate mainly to standalone VPN brands like NordVPN, Proton VPN, ExpressVPN, and Norton Secure VPN; it does not show that multi‑service privacy bundles (VPN+private search+browser+extras) dominate VPN usage. (security.org)
  • Brave — a leading privacy browser — reports 100 million monthly active users, but only “nearly 100,000” Brave VPN subscribers, i.e., roughly 0.1% of users paying for the built‑in VPN bundle. This ratio indicates that even within a highly privacy‑aware audience, paid bundled privacy protection is a small minority behavior, not mainstream. (brave.com)
  • DuckDuckGo’s search engine handles around 3 billion queries per month (~100M/day) but has <1% global search market share; its subscription bundle launched only in 2024 and, while visible in tech media, has no public evidence of mass‑market penetration. (electroiq.com)

Taken together, we see:

  • Yes: Multiple privacy‑oriented companies now sell bundled privacy/security subscriptions, often integrating VPN with browsers or privacy‑first ecosystems.
  • No: These bundles have not become a $20–30/month standard mainstream product that "average Joe" consumers widely buy. Typical prices are lower, and adoption of these specific suites is limited compared to overall internet users and even compared to total VPN users.

Because the prediction was specifically about mainstream, widespread uptake at a roughly $25/month price point, and current data instead show niche adoption and lower, more competitive pricing, the prediction is best judged as wrong, even though it correctly anticipated the general direction toward more bundled privacy offerings.