Certainly an off-topic question. But i have to ask myself how and why did services like AirVPN come to be? Most of the providers i have been able to gather some information on AirVPN included started at or around 2010-2013. Obviously the latter correlates to the Snowden leaks; Clearly however this was a concern before the Snowden leaks but why? For privacy and torrenting reasons, why were VPN providers non-existant from the 1990's to 2010? ( The beginning of the modern web to their first appearance) From 1990-2010 there was obviously government surveillance and piracy occurring, so why were VPN's overlooked as a corporate utility for remote employees until 2010? What changed? After 2010 and the Snowden revelations in 2013 VPN's and VPN providers sprung up seemingly out of nowhere. Removing the Snowden leaks from consideration, why were VPN's first used to protect the privacy and security of citizens in the first place when the technology was designed for a completely different reason?