News
VPN service lets users pay what they want amid global recession
July 2020 by Marc Jacob
Atlas VPN introduces the Pay-What-You-Want feature on July 14 of 2020. This new option lets users pay as much as they want for the service.
This is the first VPN provider to let customers evaluate their service’s worth and let them pay a selected price.
Atlas VPN is a Virtual Private Network service dedicated to encrypting your online traffic and masking your identity. A VPN protects user’s traffic from various threats, such as hackers invading your privacy or stealing your information. The product promotes internet freedom; hence it helps unblock geo-restricted content and allows browsing anonymously.
The company made the decision to introduce the Pay-What-You-Want feature amid the increasing unemployment rate in the US. In 2020 alone, the unemployment rate in the US reached 7.5% on average, which is an all-time high since 2013.
The Atlas VPN team believes that no one should sacrifice secure browsing and risk having their information stolen due to uncertain events in the world.
The unemployment reaches a rate of 14.7% in April
When the Great Recession hit the world in 2008, the unemployment rate in the US began rising, reaching 5.8%,Bls.gov suggests.In 2009, it surged to 9.3% and reached its peak in 2010: the unemployment rate hit 9.6%.
During the next nine years, the unemployment rate in the US was steadily dropping. The rate decreased from 8.9% in 2011 to 3.7% in 2019, which was the lowest in the US since 1990.
Unemployment in the US began rising in March 2020, hitting a rate of 4.4%, compared to 3.5% in February. The rate skyrocketed in April, reaching a rate of 14.7%. On average, the unemployment rate was approximately 7.9% during the first five months of 2020.
At the same time, interest in unemployment help is growing steadily, Google Trends data reveals. Google Trends system provides numbers that show search interest relative to the highest point on the chart for the given region and time. A value of 100 is the peak popularity for the term, while the value of 50 means it is half as popular.
The unemployment rate is calculated by dividing the number of unemployed persons by the labor force, which is the sum of unemployed and employed persons.
When the lockdowns began in the middle of March, the interest rate in "pandemic unemployment assistance" reached 1 out of 100, Google Trends system suggests. During the next two weeks, it jumped to 48 but dropped to 31 amid April 5-11.
The popularity of the "pandemic unemployment assistance" keyword was growing steadily throughout April, reaching 86 in the last week of the month. The interest rate was fluctuating in May but started growing in June. Between 21st to 27th of June, interest in the "pandemic unemployment assistance" keyword peaked, reaching the maximum rate of 100 in the US.
As the unemployment rate is growing swiftly, Atlas VPN aims to provide a chance to maintain online security for those who have lost their job or generally are in a difficult financial situation due to the pandemic. Atlas VPN gives users the option to use their free tier; however, it allows connecting to fewer servers.
Pay-What-You-Want allows purchasing the premium Atlas VPN plan for your selected price – you can pay a dollar, three, five, eight, or ten for the first month.
Atlas VPN will be offering the special Pay-What-You-Want deal for one month, from today to August 14, 2020. Customers will be informed about the offer via a notification and they will be able to claim the special offer for only 24 hours after receiving the alert.
With some service limitations applied, Atlas VPN already offers its service for free. However, those who want to get full access to the service can upgrade to the premium plan that offers additional benefits, such as more VPN servers to connect to.
