I disagree. The fact that THO doesn’t show his face means that he takes his privacy seriously, yes. It doesn’t mean that the other privacy YouTubers don’t take theirs seriously. Privacy is a spectrum, and everybody gets to choose where they want to sit on that spectrum. There is value in showing your face. It makes you more relatable, which is why some privacy YouTubers embrace it. I value the voices of people like Naomi Brockwell, @Henry (Tech Lore), @Jonah (Privacy Guides), Paris Marx (Tech Won’t Save Us), @FirewallDragons and so many more.
In the video, THO shows a screengrab of Proton’s email to him. In them, we can see the name he is addressed by, and it is probably his real name. I have no idea why he made that choice, but he did. I don’t know where THO is from, but I always assumed he was European. With the reveal of his first name, it becomes easier to narrow down where he might be from because of how it is spelled.
I hear you, but from a journalistic point of view, why would a news outlet seek to be for-profit? For-profit means good journalism is not your top priority. I am not American, but in many countries you learn about the important responsibility media have when they are funded by the public, versus when the motive is profit. They don’t have the same values.
That being said, THO is not a journalist or a media outlet, but he still has some responsibility, like anyone with a large audience has.
It depends on where you live. In some European countries, non-profit media outlets benefit from crucial government funding, but it’s not enough for them to survive. Moreover, some European countries have grants for YouTubers, usually if they are small and in a specific niche. It makes a significant difference to what they are able to do, but again, most of the time it’s not enough to survive long term. Not on its own.