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YouTube is one of the biggest social networks out there and probably is the biggest content treasury on the Internet. It was launched to the public in 2005, and at first, it generated about 30,000 visitors per day. However, it served approximately two million video views per day at the end of the launch year and started snowballing.
Right now, YouTube is a home to millions of channels, YouTube celebrities and influencers are known worldwide. And you can find everything there. Beauty influencers like Tati Westbrook have millions of followers, a gamer PewDiePie, who was the most followed personality in YT for quite some time, has 109 million subscribers. Casey Neistat went from a second-hand job to having 12.3 million subscribers.
And there’s way more of them than I just named. These people aren’t only making good money on YouTube, they are forming communities. People gather in the commentaries to share their opinions, and travelling influencers inspire people to visit new places, taste fresh cuisine, and try out a different lifestyle.
If you’re interested in how YouTube helped people rise to fame and get their dream job, you can read our other article on how ordinary people became the most famous YouTubers. Maybe it will even inspire you to make a video or two?
But we’re here to talk about something else. You might’ve noticed celebrities promoting different services on YouTube, and in the last few years, there’s a lot of cybersecurity products in there. So let’s see what that’s all about.
Why do YouTubers recommend cybersecurity software?
Some people like to skip ads and promotions, but not me. I like knowing what services my beloved influencers use and how they helped them build their online presence. For example, as a long-time World of Warcraft player, I follow Rhykker YT chan because he gives the most up to date news on Blizzard games. And he frequently promotes Squarespace, a web design service that I used for my project, and it was handy!
That’s why I like to double-check what people I follow recommend using. To be frank, it was on the same Rhykker channel that I noticed NordVPN and NordPass being recommended. I have heard about password managers before and knew that they can be used to secure your accounts with strong passwords stored in an encrypted vault.
I have only heard about VPNs a few times before and never really knew what they could be used for. But I remembered that I saw VPN advertisements on both PewDiePie and Casey Neistat videos, and thought that if such prominent figures recommend using it, then there must be a reason. So let’s take a look at what they say about VPNs.
Both Casey and PewDiePie praise NordVPN for granting them access to geographically restricted content. We’ve all seen those frustrating “this video is not available in your country” alerts, and most of us don’t know why on earth they’re there in the first place. What happened to the open and free Internet?
Looking a bit closer, it’s clear that geographical restrictions are a serious problem. Streaming services limit their content according to where you’re browsing from. Even if we pay the same price for the service, I will not get the full Netflix library that US citizens enjoy if I live in Europe. I even found a web page that lists all the shows and their availability per country. Just look up Twin Peaks, doesn’t it make you angry that this classic is available only to the US, even though we all pay to Netflix?
Sounds not fair, and it looks like YouTube celebrities agree on this one. Another well-known game critic AngryJoeShow also supports VPNs and states that geographical restrictions are a huge frustration.
So that’s one reason why YouTubers are recommending VPNs, to fight for an open and secure Internet.
And security is the second reason for their support. The Internet is a dangerous place these days since many money operations are happening online, hackers are trying to profit from that. And online celebrities are well aware of that. Last year a lot of famous people got their Twitter accounts hacked. Kanye West, Kim Kardashian, Elon Musk, even Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos started spamming promises that they will be giving out money to whomever first…sends them money.
Their messages promised to double the amount of money to anybody that sends them some, and then they’ll send it back. Sadly, many people thought this was a genuine offer, and some did lose their money. That is one way how cybercriminals can target famous people to commit a crime.
A lot of people also lost their accounts to Credential stuffing attacks. You can double-check how Disney+ accounts were hacked and stolen because people used the same weak passwords for separate accounts. This is a big no-no because these passwords can leak online, and if they’ve been leaked and you reused it, then some cybercriminal may try to take over your account, and you can lose money because of that.
These are online security issues and why influencers inform their fans to start using cybersecurity services. Because they care and want to help, their viewers protect themselves.
Now let’s look at what can be done and how to do these cybersecurity services work.
What do VPNs and password managers do?
I’ve researched VPNs and password managers, and even though they might sound tricky at first, it’s actually really easy to understand how you can benefit from them.
Both of these services use encryption to protect your data. A VPN, or Virtual Private Network, creates a secure and encrypted tunnel between your device and the Internet. Additional encryption ensures that no cybercriminals or data-miners can take a look at what you’re doing online. This means that they won’t be able to steal your credit card details because your online data-flow is encrypted and they can’t decipher it.
Password managers also work by encrypting your data, but specifically passwords. You can generate as many long and secure passwords as you like, and a password manager will encrypt them and store them in a secure vault. Only you have access to the vault, which is a massive boost to your online safety and privacy.
And that’s why YouTubers are recommending cybersecurity services. Because they’re really useful these days, and who else knows better about the online world than the people forming such a huge part of it?
