Comcast Router Privacy Problems

A story about Shaan exploring WiFi router options after moving into a new house and discovering a business opportunity.

"I moved into this new house and needed to get internet set up, so I had to play the Comcast game. Comcast comes over and WiFi doesn't work great in my house, so I needed to invest in good WiFi because not having good WiFi is like not having water to drink.

I was looking at these Eero mesh networks for better coverage. I was talking to Furkon about an idea: instead of having your WiFi router and then separately downloading a VPN on your laptop, why not build VPN directly into the router? VPNs are complicated to set up - you have to download one, you don't know if it's malware, and the average person doesn't even know what a VPN is.

Furkon told me there are already companies doing this like NextDNS and Ubiquiti, but they're still pretty technical - you need to be a developer to know about them or know how to configure them. I think if someone takes the Eero level of simplicity but makes the value proposition 'your internet traffic is private if you buy this box,' people would get behind that.

The market is interesting because WiFi is like email or Google search - every physical place has a router. Even capturing 2% of that market who cares about privacy could be significant. Plus, Comcast charges $14 monthly for a router that's probably worth $50 - they break even in 5 months and know you'll never get rid of it."