I'd like to thank Andy for introducing me to Proton's competitor Tuta.

Every time this asshole speaks it just throws the entire company even further off a cliff lmao

“Loser talk” is something a fucking 4chan basement dweller would say. I hate how society is just the stupidest fucks at the forefront now.

Maybe I'm a particularly sensitive, spiteful snowflake, but if the boss of my company accused me of being a "loser" because I cared about the quality of the product, I'd be looking to deliberately sabotage the product. And for a new job, of course.

Stop giving Proton money

RIP Proton.

Privacy minded people tend to also want security.

WTF? Is he 12 years old?
Is this really true?

Alright, that's enough for me. What's the best mail, calendar and drive alternatives? Preferably the ones that aren't slop-coded.

Also, has anyone had any experience with Migadu?

Ah shit balls! 3 months into a paid up email, calendar, drive and VPN suite. Have moved a lot of files over. Will start looking again, but definitely separating everything from now

Andy Yen sounds like an asshole.

I still need to move away from Gmail, but it's probably not going to be to Proton.

Well...some people are linux distro hopping and me...email hopping...f*uck

Every company seems to be rolling out software with no testing these days. Why? Is this what they think their consumers prefer? Why would we want glitchy accounting software with a chat bot that can’t actually do anything? I think they broke supply and demand with AI somehow

Yen said this is the last year that Proton will hire engineers at all, and instead only hire people to build things with AI.

Bro is all in on AI and even he doesn't seem to consider "prompt engineers" actual engineers.

Ah, yes, once again the old adage "When they show you they are, believe them" has proved it never fails.

A happy Proton paying customer, I bailed within a week when Andy made his pro GOP/trump comments some time back.

Folks said I over reacted. I handed them that adage. It was right.

Protons top "loser" engineers will find themselves welcomed elsewhere. What a disaster Proton has become under Yen.

guess its time to host my own email

Get rid of Andy Proton

I already think proton mail is pretty slow to render/load, they don't have much room to make it worse before it's too much-in other words they better be real careful with that vibe coding.

In general these events have me thinking of switching providers (and I have a paid tier).

Thanks for sharing! Good post, totally worth the read.

And I know which company to stay away from, and will solidly recommend this to others as well.

Proton is legit, they said.

Horrible stuff. I've been using Proton since 2020 and back then Proton's thing was just an encrypted email service. Year after year, they've started adding all these other apps and services to Proton's platform, and some of them fits nicely with the core email service (calendar, cloud for files, VPN). But lately they've began adding apps and services such as AI LLM chat (which is pretty crappy and inaccurate), remote video meeting software (which is really barebones feature wise) and apparently now they are working on Chromium based "privacy" browser (as if we don't have enough browsers already, let alone Chromium based). All of this requires a lot more developers and takes more time to develop and maintain, which is probably why Andy is so keen on making progress faster by using AI.

But why does Proton need to add all of these apps? To fight big tech in all fronts? To create same kind of ultra loyal, "will buy anything" fanboy culture around Proton products like Apple has (and to lesser extent Google has)? Or is it to grow bigger company much faster than originally intended (because the investors want that) all the while taking bigger financial risks in doing so?

In any case, Andy needs to step down as the CEO. The next CEO needs to take a good hard look at what's relevant to their customers. I don't think anyone is asking for a vibe-coded Proton web browser, just because it's "Proton".

I commented before from the summary. Read as much of the 404 story as I can now.

It's bad. If I didn't trust 404 Media, I might think this was a hit piece. But 404 does good work and I trust their journalists. I should really subscribe!

Social media is prone to instant lynch mobs, one of its worst aspects. I do not intend to rage quit. But I WILL re-evaluate in 3 months. Just marked my calendar. They need to very publicly reverse course, AND restore my trust. I believe in giving ppl and co's a chance to learn from mistakes, or nobody ever gets wiser. But I need to see that happen, or me and my $ are out.

I also no longer trust Andy's judgement. The Proton engineers are saying the right things. Again I trust 404's homework, or I would be much more skeptical of all of this.

For those of you that care enough, I suggest letting Proton know in their community voice platform/forum. You can also email thier foundation.

Ugh.

I've heard Andy interviewed. Couple times. He came across as personable and likable. But that takes a backseat if he's gonna steer his company off a cliff and I have to stop trusting their products. Even smart people can make dumb choices. Esp when no one is empowered to push back. It can get pathological, when the CEO starts to believe they walk on water.

Frankly I think the Proton Foundation needs to sit Andy down and have a heart to heart.

Guess I need to make sure I get my email server up before the next renewal. Since that was recent, hopefully way before next renewal.

I'm not sure I can win the war for deliverable self-hosted email, and I send almost no email ever anyway, so I'm considering setting up a server that accepts email directly but relays outgoing mail through a relay that's actually trusted by email providers. Can anyone recommend good relays for that?

What recourse do we have other than switching to a competitor and waiting until someone over there does something I disagree with?

https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/945460-general-ideas/suggestions/51867423-andy-yen-steps-aside

Vote on making him step down

goodbye proton vpn, hello airvpn

The issue is he's correct in regards to business: the vast majority of people are clueless and will buy/use anything if the advertising is good enough.

"Yen, a former CERN particle physicist"..so his career as a physicist bombed and he figured he would try IT?

I have six months left on my protonmail. Started the move to mailbox.org yesterday. Signed up for oscura and need to set up my vaultwarden

Goddammit... I just switched to Proton. I really don't know if I can handle switching again so soon.

While I like AI, this fundamental rule is no different from a human coder: Do QA before letting it go live.

I mean, he ain't wrong.

Shareholders don't value stability.or the lobg term. They value short term profit. What happens to the company or products after is less than an afterthought.

Even though it dies with the person affected by it, cancer always wins by killing its host in the end. And clearly, in the CEO's eyes, so should Proton.