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  • Hacker News
  • Aw schucks. I moved to Proton half a year ago in an effort to de-Google (and de-US) myself. Now this. Time to write a message to customer service explaining my concerns.
  • I already cancelled my subscription. They've demonstrated far too reckless behavior for me to trust something this critical to them, especially as they present themselves as the private and secure alternative.
  • Kind of amazing how completely Yen misunderstands Protons customer base. It’s pretty much entirely security conscious people who want to divest from big tech right?

    Why would he throw all that away?

  • damn, this guy crashing out live in front of his company and the (tech) world.

    AI times are weird. Validates that truism I heard: money (and power and influence and now AI) is an amplifier. It amplifies what you always were.

  • Damn. My proton plan just renewed a couple weeks ago.

    I have not failed to notice that they’ve slowed focus on security oriented features and are now focused on a lot of things I don’t care about, but I didn’t realize the magnitude of the cultural problem there.

    Without the security aspect, Proton is ridiculously overpriced. If they want to compete with GSuite or Zoho, they gotta come down.

    I’m willing to pay premium for a niche security focused offering. I’m not willing to pay a premium for AI generated crapware.

  • Proton engineering culture always got a bad rep pre-AI era as well(per their glassdoor reviews[1]) . Poor engineering directly or indirectly makes them susceptible to data breach because good talent stays away. One reason why I hesitated moved to proton back when a lot of people did. My understanding is that the only reason they are in the game are because send email services are extremely difficult to run.

    [1] https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/PROTON-Reviews-E13574.htm

  • Related:

    "Manifestos, Fear, and 'Loser Thinking': Inside Proton's AI Reckoning" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50289692 67 comments

    "Proton goes all in on using AI" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50296602 110 comments

    "Proton to 'Re-Interview' Staff About AI to See Who Gets to Keep Their Job" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50251062 48 comments

  • << “I want to acknowledge myself, personally, that there was a communication failure on my part and there are many things that probably could and should have been communicated differently, and this is something that I’ll have to reflect on and improve over time. So I will do that.”

    Note how he says that he wants to 'acknowledge' things. Not apologize. Not that he is wrong about the re-interviews. He says he didn't use nice enough language to soften the blow. Basically, in simple terms, he didn't Lisa it up as temporary refund adjustment.

    edit: and the passive voice is a cherry on top

    edit2: I gotta say -- all those CEOs are getting a little uppity for people who likely use copilot for summarizing emails.

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