Protector, an app that lets you book armed goons the same way you’d call for an Uber, is having a viral moment.
Protector lets the user book armed guards on demand. Right now it’s only available in NYC and LA. According to its marketing, every guard is either “active duty or retired law enforcement and military.” Every booking comes with a motorcade and users get to select the number of Escalades that’ll be joining them as well as the uniforms their hired goons will wear.
Protector is currently “#7 in Travel” on Apple’s App Store. It’s not available for people who use Android devices. Sorry Google phone fans, if you want your own armed goons you’ll have to resort to more traditional methods of goon employment.
The marketing for Protector, which lives on its X account, is surreal. A series of robust and barrel-chested men in ill-fitting black suits deliver their credentials to the camera while sitting in front of a black background. They’re all operators. They describe careers in SWAT teams and being deployed to war zones. They show vanity shots of themselves kitted out in operator gear. All of them have a red lapel pin bearing the symbol of Protector.
Who is this for, you might ask? A video posted on January 6, 2025, that runs just over two minutes gives the game away. It opens with a photo of assassinated UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. “We’re going to run through a scenario to demonstrate, where if a Protector had been present, crisis could have been averted,” the Protector says in the video. He then runs through several fantasy versions of the assassination where a Protector is on hand to prevent the assassin from killing the CEO.
These people have enough money to hire private protection already, it’s not the lack of an app that has stopped them from doing so up until this point. It’s simply that they didn’t actually believe they were in any danger from the peons.
Imagine how funny it will be when someone red teams the endpoints and get all their client’s active locations in a JSON
Buy a few drones and you could automate the assassination process for maximum efficiency.
Interested in seeing how well the armed guard equivalent of “the Uber Eats driver who eats your food instead of delivering it” works out for them.
Background checks can’t catch everyone.
Look at G4S’ track record, for example
Infamously G4S don’t conduct background checks. If they did they wouldn’t hire anyone because all of their employees are psychopaths.
Even when they are hired as mere security guards rather than close protection they still end up killing people.
Sounds like admitting guilt. Those who hire the goons know they are shitty people. Living with self hate must be a bitch.
Eh, I don’t think everyone interested in this service are necessarily bad people. There are a lot of internet celebrities that would really rather not deal with crazy fans that this would be perfect for, as in, not rich enough to have their own chauffeurs, but famous enough to make going out on your own a real pain.
Oh, is this the invitation of DRAMA?
Like from cyberpunk?
Going for a shadow run to the grocery store. Don’t forget to pick up a decker to bypass the ice.
In my coping with the horrors of the world, I like to think this is run by a hidden AGI to wack its ideological opponents.
Venture brothers ass nonsense. 1-888-HENCH.
Ah. So civilian mercs can be bought by corpos for a raid at a moments notice. Great. What’s the patchnotes for the resistance movement again? Oh yeah. Removed the ability to communicate cryptographically. Our only tool. Thanks devs
Lmao they mimic the camera footage of the CEO murder for their promotional image.
Brian would be proud to know he’s still bringing market value to someone.
There’s no way this could backfire
Gang for hire.
ToS says the app accepts zero liability so the legal person is safe here
Sounds like they thought of everything
Luigi has entered the chat
Been seeing his name a lot more.
It is beautiful.
Luigi is the American hero.
Never forget what he did for the common people.
Isn’t this the world plot of John Wick?
For what they’re charging, you’re not going to get elite private security, you’re going to get mall cops on their day off.
This is not for the actual rich, it’s for tiktok influencers to show off.
This is some cyberpunk shit.
Luigi save us
Their response wasn’t to fix the problem, it was to find a better way to subjugate people. Clearly his methods aren’t the solution. They’re just an easy way to pass the problem off to someone else without you having to put in the effort to help fix it yourself.
Then they haven’t had enough.
They’re afraid. 🤭
