posted in Technology

UnLocoPoco@UnLocoPoco@lemmy.world

€2.99 or €3.49? Proton VPN's Pricing Test Exposed

cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/50434194

Proton VPN’s pricing page exposed an ab-test identifier linked to two VPN Plus prices: €2.99/month (70% off) and €3.49/month (65% off). Repeated testing produced B → A → B → A → B, with the variant matching the rendered price each time. €12 difference over 24 months.

thecybersecguru.com/news/proton-vpn-ab-testing-price-difference/
Proton VPN AB testingThe CyberSec GuruProton VPN Is Showing Different Prices: Inside Its €2.99 vs €3.49 A/B Test | The CyberSec GuruAn investigation into Proton VPN's pricing page found an A/B-test tag linked to two VPN Plus prices: €2.99 and €3.49 per month
🌞 Alexander Daychilde 🌞@daychilde@lemmy.world

Replying to @⁨abacabadabacaba@infosec.pub⁩

I agree except you can’t have something be “several times shorter”. Yes, I know what you mean, but “several times” can only be longer. It’s like saying “500% less”. You can’t do that. The best case scenario is that means “20% of the original” but arguably “500% less” would mean you take five times the original amount and subtract it from the original, leaving you with negative 4 times the amount, not twenty percent.

Anyway. This is just a light-hearted pedantic pseudo-rant, although I also do stand by the truth of what I’m saying. But I’m not intending corrections, just being silly about a pet peeve of mine. heh

hmm… that article might be better off being -4 times its original length, come to that. heh

Wrufieotnak@Wrufieotnak@feddit.org

Replying to @⁨sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone⁩

OK, either I don’t understand you or you don’t understand me, because that’s what I’m also saying?

Your example “twice as short” works.

The original comment wasn’t about your example.

The original comment was “several times shorter”.

As you used twice in place of several times, I also put twice in there to make the difference to yours more obvious.

Twice shorter isnt the same as twice as short. You talked in your first comment about something different than the other comments talked about. That is what I wanted to express.

sem@sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone

Replying to @⁨Wrufieotnak@feddit.org⁩

I don’t think we understand each other.

To me, several times shorter makes perfect sense, and twice as short is a special case, where it is two times as short. Thus, several times shorter includes:

  • two times shorter == twice as short
  • 1.5 times shorter == 1.5 times as short
  • five times shorter == five times as short
  • several times shorter == several times as short (the “as short” construction sounds clunky to me here in this case)

As i write these out, i realize what you were trying to say: X times shorter is equivalent to X times as short for me, so equivalent that I didn’t realize when I was using one or the other.

You are saying that for some people, the “X times shorter” construction doesn’t sound natural. I can respect that, but it doesn’t seem like a part of mainstream English to me at least.

“Twice shorter” isn’t what anyone is talking about. That isn’t how you combine the words, at least to me.