Understanding the proxy market

Proxies went from something that's extremely niche and hidden to something that supports the largest businesses in the world

News By Karolis Toleikis published 9 October 2024

Much like Adam Smith’s often criticized “invisible hand,” the best proxies also play a nearly imperceptible, but influential role in the business world. Almost all of us interact with proxies on a daily basis, yet few people understand the far-reaching implications of the technology.

Some skepticism regarding proxies is understandable – they’ve historically been used for niche applications, some of which wouldn’t have been considered to be of the highest ethical caliber. While the skeptical public perception continues to follow proxies, the best proxy servers are now considered to be an essential part of many business models.

Karolis Toleikis

Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder of IPRoyal.

A simple technology with far-reaching benefits

In the simplest possible terms, a proxy is an internet-connected device that can relay traffic for another machine. Much of the same technological foundation is used for a better-known type of product – a virtual private network (VPN).

VPNs, however, come laden user experience benefits that make the service easy to use for consumers and businesses alike. Many of them nowadays grant lots of additional services such as cyber threat protection.

Proxies would be considered a bare bones product by many consumers. After all, most proxy products are a set of IP addresses, ports, and some basic configuration options. Yet, the same bare bones nature of proxies makes them more modular.

Due to the way networking has been established, any IP address brings with itself some additional information such as the predicted location – something that is of high importance in some business applications.

All of these aspects create unique business applications for proxies. But they also make the same product largely irrelevant for day-to-day consumer use, leading to an environment where the general public never notices them while businesses are reliant on the product.

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