I never had any real issues with speed using Surfshark, the reason I made the switch was largely about trust. As another user said, as soon as I saw Surfshark start their YouTube advertising spree, and start to bloat their client with unnecessary features, I started looking for alternatives.

I’m iffy about any VPN company that uses YouTuber marketing as it is, and while my threat model isn’t overly paranoid, I believe the VPN company someone chooses to use should have paranoid business practices. After I saw the news on Mullvad’s raid, the authorities subsequently finding nothing, and the fact that a user’s account is merely a string of numbers, I decided it was the VPN for me.