OG title: We need to talk... about the Proton ecosystem

Some good points to be said. I find the overall argument a bit weak as it is mainly one of user erorr

Thematically adequate typo!

Mozilla Thunderbird is about to launch Thundermail, which looks like it will be more open (no bridge to use in email clients), include a free tier eventually, and of course is owned by a nonprofit unlike Proton.

If you were not concerned about executing subpoenas yourself, self host, even on an openwrt.

If you have email, the Calendar, Contacts, notes/tasks, functionality can be also replicated on a shoestring budget. You might have to write some code, but you would be ok.

I'm also a fan of spreading eggs into multiple baskets, but I'd be happy to see someone go full Proton if it means they leave Google

I don't disagree, but until I start self hosting, I would rather support the competition.

Agree but nobody forces you to use anything except ProtonMail or ProtonVPN. In fact I have a visionary account and I mostly just use ProtonMail. I do use ProtonVPN but I also have WireGuard. Also my ProtonMail addresses are behind domains I host. If tomorrow I decide to switch away from Proton, I can.

So... sure Proton is not perfect and centralization is bad but IMHO it's like saying Firefox is imperfect so it's fine to use Chrome or Chromium browsers. Imperfect alternatives to BigTech and surveillance capitalism is better than relying on the things you hate until something "perfect" never comes along.

The average person is not going to sign up and pay for 10 different things, even if it's slightly more private. Proton is similar to Google in that it's free and has a lot of things with one account, but vastly different in the way the data is handled, probably the most meaningful difference. I mean the best thing you can do is self host but it's obviously not something everyone can or wants to do. So there's nothing wrong with taking the next best thing.

One big and important difference for Google and other similar ecosystems is that usually they are free and they profit of selling your data and ads. Proton is different since to use their ecosystem you have to pay to get in so they are not as incitevized to sell data since they already have that cashflow. That's not to say that can't change as we all know for profit companies tend to try other means of profit if they can.

How do they force you? I just use them for email and VPN.

I stepped away from Proton as soon as they started pushing more than just mail and VPN and started bombarding me with prompts to subscribe to one of their plans.

I dont appreciate things like my protonmail app icon being changed to say "Black Friday" on it thank you very much.

I get where you're coming from but it was all the result of user requests. People were asking Proton to make more services and apps for years

Proton is targetting enterprise who would love a secure alternative to Google Workspace. A normal consumer don't need to put all eggs in one basket. I don't think Proton is forcing you either. I just use their paid email service.

I just use them for my email and calendar.

You're not locked in. I can transfer everything in 10 minutes.

I left Proton after the weird comment made by its ceo. I now have my email hosted with my own domain.

Yeah maybe... But Proton is a private company which shields them from much of the external forces the big guys are always scrambling to please. The Proton ceo can still choose not to enshitify and keep his job. Time will tell I guess.

I totally understand the issues with having a toolset offering, but at the same time, there's no way someone that is not as concerned to privacy, or a business that uses basic office tools, to consider Proton as an alternative to Google or Microsoft. They don't have only an email and calendar, they have a full work tooling suite, which is very important to a lot of people. I believe we should work for more companies to develop their own apps and systems, even a full ecosystem. Otherwise, we might land on the same problem streamings are right now: there are so many of them, that it's again easier (not only in terms of money) to download movies and tv shows. If you have 10-20 apps you need to pay or to keep updated, add new users through a management system, you will probably not choose those tools and move to one that includes everything. I personally am sticking to Proton for mail, calendar drive, and VPN, but I'm going with OnlyOffice for office tools, and considering between keeping 1Password or moving to Bitwarden, since the cost of 1Password is high - it is totally worth it, just not currently my plan to keep that expense

Historically that's all true, and good reason to keep an eye on them.

But Proton is very much different than all the previous companies in this space. They're a non-VC funded private non-profit, with a board of trustees made up of scientists and engineers. The buisness model is funded by subscription, not ad sales. And by design, they themselves have no access to any of their users data.

With all that in place to prevent enshittification, I don't realy see any rational reason for concern.

Yeah, I left recently had a family plan $20 a month, but the value ad was just not there, and then I saw them spending money on crypto and AI, and we all use Linux, so I feel like we got left out in the cold in a way, no drive client etc

I use proton bridge with thunderbird. I ignore the rest of the suite of services (i wish i could pay less for stuff i dont use)

i dont feel trapped as long as i stick to email only. I self host the rest of it (files, calendar)

A great thing about the Proton "ecosystem" is that it is not like Google where you need an account to access docs (or VPN on mobile!), though I agree that centralisation isn't the best thing for tech nerds like us. That's why I prefer to just use ProtonMail and VPN, and leave the other stuff like drives and password managers to other open-source projects.

(Also, having an ecosystem may be good for those who refuse to put in as much effort as us, or those who simply do not understand as much as we do. I personally don't support centralisation, but there's a reason that non-tech nerds often do.)

Yeah. I'm hoping to go mostly self-hosted.

100%

Proton should fire bootlicker Andy and fix their current products instead of spreading out and vibe coding as many apps as they can to grow their own centralized monopoly.

There's a lot one can knock Proton for but having a comprehensive suite of features is not one of them on its own.

The set of features is not unique, e.g. Nextcloud can do much of what Proton offers.

If people distrust Proton solely for the fact that they are trying to have the same feature set as Google and Microsoft, then that kneecaps any potential competitor against this duopoly. If the ideal way is to pay for a VPN provider, cloud storage, email and document editor all separtely or self-host each, it's not really accessible to many either financially or in terms of technical knowledge.

I switched from Google to Proton a few years ago and am happy with it, though it's not perfect. I only really use Mail, Pass, and Drive.

Tne thing I really wish was better is their Calendar. It has all the basics but a robust task system and extras like timetracking could make it awesome.

Unfortunately I am still using Google calendar as it is central to my time and task organization.

Honestly, Proton has seemed shady this whole time. I got a bogus gmail account so that it would not move all my google spam to my Proton account. Then it sent an email notification to a completely different gmail saying that I needed to check 5 new Proton emails. Like, I did not want that to be known, hence my reason for switching to Proton. It pissed me off, so now it is just my email trash can. I'll find another junk email when I pay for extra domains elsewhere.

given how close proton and andy yen are to oppressive governments, you should trust anyone but them.