Generally speaking, they all have to have relatively short term logs to operate and protect their services. This tends to defeat things like piracy, where commercial actors need time to file paperwork and get subpoenas, by which time the logs are gone, but obviously the feds can move a lot faster and tend to get what they need to catch serious criminal activity.

This would, to me, suggest VPN services are a general societal good, as they prohibit annoying corporate IP enforcement behaviors, while not meaningfully helping pedophiles and terrorists.

Russia and China would in fact be a better solution as most Westerners are never going to be subject to Russian or Chinese authorities.

> most Westerners are never going to be subject to Russian or Chinese authorities

Coercible locals are a valuable asset. Not sure why countries with zero rule of law would be attractive to someone valuing a principle like privacy.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say, especially with the "coerciable locals", other than trying to say China and Russia have "zero rule of law".

His point is that foreign states could blackmail you or exert pressure in other ways, even if they aren't gonna extradite and throw you in jail following due process. Thus, Russia/China would have "coercible locals" in western countries.

In the US a "coercible local" is given a far less scary descriptor of confidential informant, or state's evidence. There are far more of those than there are "coerced locals" in the service of Russia or China.

Any locals in any country are coercible to their government, if it really wants to.

Sure until you visit a geopolitically aligned airport and get detained and propositioned by a foreign intelligence agency. Then you end up spying against your own country because your VPN provider was just a honeypot for a foreign intelligence agency. Blackmail, forced detention, "crimes against the Chinese state", jail without due process or civil rights, who knows. Maybe you didn't even break US law but Chinese or Russian law.

I would never willingly trust a country like Russia or China with my information.

That stuff already happens to people in the West, and people who visit non-Western but Western aligned countries. The fact of the matter is that if you are a Westerner, you are going to spend more time in the Western sphere of influence, of which Russia and China are not a part of.

I think the West generally respects and understands due process, rule of law and those general ideas. You will likely get a fair trial. Not so for some of the opposition.