I was under the impression that VPN services were very profitable on their own, without selling data. Is this really a price thing, or is it a shady greed thing?

$3 a month per person is not a business model...

It’s hard to have another business model when you know nothing about the user. Please read up on how Mullvad works and then come back with a coherent argument on how they could be making money off user data.

Lots of video streaming services seem to be in the $10/mo range, and they have to deal with licensing all the shows and storing them. $3/mo seems pretty reasonable off the cuff for a VPN service.

Don't forget all the youtubers a VPN has to pay and all the 75% off deals with the promocode ILOVEMYYOUTUBER.

It is when support costs are negligible and they use 40 cents of server resources.

A higher price point isn't proof of anything.

If a provider can sell a VPN for $1/month as a loss leader and make $5/user after selling all data, what keeps a $10/month VPN from making >$15 doing the exact same thing?

My point was that they charge more for the subscription to avoid putting themselves in a situation where they feel pressure to sell user data to make up for a bad quarter of sales.