Roast away. We spent the last 6 months building TocaVPN — a VPN designed to actually work in countries where VPNs are actively blocked (Russia, China).

Target audience with a trust problem. We’re asking users in censored countries to route all their traffic through a relatively unknown VPN. Why should they trust us over an established name? Fair question.

Monetization is shaky. The users who need us most are sitting in countries where payments (cards, app store billing) are difficult. We’re leaning toward crypto, but that’s a steep hurdle for conversion.

Distribution is a nightmare. The Play Store tolerates us just barely, RuStore filters out anti-censorship VPNs, Chinese stores won’t touch us. That leaves direct APK downloads and Telegram. Fragile.

What I actually want from you:
Is “VPN for censored countries” a real differentiator, or am I just telling myself a nice story? And if you were in one of these countries — what would actually make you trust a no-name VPN?

Happy to drop the link/details in the comments, don’t want this to come across as a pure ad. Have at it.