I think it's just really rich people, but tech CEOs are in this terminally online culture so not only does it all end up out there but they seem to feed off each other and try to bizarrely one up each other.
Once you start getting real money, you start noticing how much is going to taxes.
Even though the net income is more money than you've ever seen in your life, and the meagre fraction that is going to welfare is abysmally small, yet was a true lifeline to you when you needed it mere weeks ago... it still makes your blood boil knowing you're not getting everything you feel you deserve.
Imagine that amplified x 10, and you can see how a CEO might feel that they're throwing tens of thousands a month on what they feel are undeserving recipients. All they see are the zeroes, not the percentage.
TL;DR - we all inhabit the same planet, but we live in different worlds.
I see a lot of good discussion here. I've been on proton for years now, using my own domain. While true that Andy is one of 5 board members, and it's a nonprofit etc, these statements are raising hairs on my neck, personally.
Does anyone have a good guide on problems associated with self-hosting email?
I don't think I do this like you're suggesting, but I have my email hosted at opalstack. I've been really happy with them. I don't have a server-side spam solution yet, though. I just set up spam rules on Thunderbird on my local machine.
I don't know any guide, but deliverability is the biggest concern and it may also not be fully under control. Sometimes IP blocks get blacklisted or deranked and your emails end in spam, and you might not even know that.
Another tech dipshit, whose wealth allows him to exist outside the realm of reality, bending the knee to an anti-democratic felon rapist so he can get some handouts.
Pathetic loser.
Growing up, if you had told me half or more of America would end up elevating a rapist to the presidency and prostrating themselves at his feet, I'd have laughed you out of the room. This nation has sunk LOW.
NordVPN is superior in every way. If you have ProtonVPN, dump it and swap to Nord.
Growing up, if you had told me half or more of America would end up elevating a rapist to the presidency and prostrating themselves at his feet, I'd have laughed you out of the room. This nation has sunk LOW.
Bill Clinton won reelection. Now, granted, he was not Trump levels, he was a piece of shit who at the very least abused his role and power over women. Now, even after me too, he's a beloved elder statesman. Just saying, the nation has sunk lower, but I don't know that's a lot lower than where we were when we were kids.
I literally just switched over from Google a few months ago and finally got all settled in. Just great. Does anyone know of any good alternative? I know Tuta exists, are there other options?
Well, switching from Proton was more painful for me, at least on a free account, as it won't gel with a desktop client like Thunderbird or Outlook, and last I checked, didn't allow email forwarding.
I know there's Fastmail, but I don't know if they have privacy on the level of Proton. I just know that one of the hosts on a tech podcast that I listen to moved there from Google and was impressed at how smooth the process was.
This is a stretch & honestly not worth abandoning proton because of this. Don't just abandon a good FOSS/Privacy project just because of a CEO's (of a frickin Non-Profit) statements, you're too busy arguing & not getting things done
Have some nuance guys
Could be 1000+ IQ chess move in disguise, appeal to Trump's ego & get him to make trouble for big-tech
I wouldn’t say he embraced Trump, I’d say he is pro-breaking big tech, since that would probably help Proton.
Bernie Sanders even came out and said “hey, if Trump wants to cap credit card interest rates, I’m with him on that.”
Trump says a lot of shit to appeal to working class people. I don’t disagree with reminding him of what he said and holding him to those things, if he’s now going to be president.
It's not even a matter of "thinking" that, it's basically what he said. All his "siding" is in the context of antitrust and breaking tech monopolies. I don't think trump will do much in this space, but dems didn't do much either. If Trump will (the election is over anyway, so we are not discussing of choosing trump for this) it's good, even if it comes from the Trump administration.
It's ridiculous how many people just go "oh well time to dump Proton" because of a picture (not even a link) of a tweet without context. Also the title is misleading. Andy Yen in this picture is complementing Trump, and also apperently posting facts about who started the antitrust actions. "Embracing" is, really, as I have written, misleading.
Corporate capture of Dems is real. In 2022, we campaigned extensively in the US for anti-trust legislation.
Two bills were ready, with bipartisan support. Chuck Schumer (who coincidently has two daughters working as big tech lobbyists) refused to bring the bills for a vote.
At a 2024 event covering antitrust remedies, out of all the invited senators, just a single one showed up - JD Vance.
1/2
[email protected] - @jonah By working on the front lines of many policy issues, we have seen the shift between Dems and Republicans over the past decade first hand.
Dems had a choice between the progressive wing (Bernie Sanders, etc), versus corporate Dems, but in the end money won and constituents lost.
Until corporate Dems are thrown out, the reality is that Republicans remain more likely to tackle Big Tech abuses.
So sounds like their main concern is addressing the abuses of the FAANG monopolies, and only a Republican has talked to them about it.
I guess that is understandable in that very narrow lens, but it's a bit laughable considering how all the big tech companies are also cozying up to the Trump administration. All this has done for me is make me wary of anything Proton does now.
Actually I disagree on the latest part. I actually questioned, why google and Facebook had to go kiss the ring and pay some bucks to Trump, and didn't have to do that before? This for me is a sign of a disalignment between big tech and the administration.
That said, it's very much possible (I would say likely) trump won't do shit and he just happens to have the "correct" position on this particular issue because it can be used to attack the Californian elite (I.e. dem elite). But it's a matter of fact that it's auspicable he will follow up with action on his words on this, even if for the wrong reasons.
Also the obviously reactionary and self-interested history of right wing reaction to FAANG, which largely has been fueled by a backlash to restraints on misinformation, and is riddled with special case exceptions (e.g. Palestine).
These fuckers act like they've never heard of Lina Khan. Let's see if Republicans try to replace her with someone with a stronger track record. Or, if they're so serious about tech competition maybe they'll get on board with net neutrality.
And look, I actually like Gail Slater (the Trump nominee that kicked off this thread). She's got some bona fides, and I welcome Republicans taking antitrust more seriously, and rolling back the damage done by Robert Bork and his adherents (including and probably most significantly Ronald Reagan).
But to pretend that Democrats are less serious about antitrust than Republicans ignores the huge moves that the Biden administration have made in this area, including outside of big tech.
By my lights your response is quite effective, and while I appreciate the modesty I think it's appropriate to bring it over here:
Unfortunately, there's a line beyond which it's not okay to view a political party through one issue, and IMO the Republicans have crossed that line.
Privacy is a human rights issue. Republicans have signaled very strongly that they're going to violate more human rights. It's a net loss for privacy if that happens, even if big tech is a bit more restrained.
I'm sorry @protonprivacy, you've failed this test IMO. It would be one thing to say that given that the Republicans are in power, that Gail Slater is a good pick, but that's not the stance you took.
Fuck, they are dumb and bad businessmen. What's the reason still to chose their product over Tuta, Posteo, Mullvad? They have lost their unique selling point as at least pretending being a neutral instance providing private services. Plain stupidity.
N.B. I originally went looking for a reason that maybe it was okay that Andy Yen was giving the thumbs up to Gail Slater. I thought this was an unfair internet pile-on. I think now it's a fair internet pile-on.
Standing up for the little guy. Huh. Is that why billionaires and CEO are throwing literal tens of millions at Trump? Why he staffed his cabinet with billionaires? Why the center of his policy is tax cuts for the giga wealthy, at the expense of everyone else and the national debt, at a time where wealth inequality is literally tearing the country apart?
These are objective, public facts. Like, I'm way more conservative than Lemmy’s center and willing acknowledge any good Trump does, but what reality is this guy living in? Who is this statement for? Who the heck does he think is using Proton services? He just pissed off his employees and customers for… What?
I was thinking this for a second, but is this really plausible? Normally when we talk about corporations we talk about how powerful they are and how they use different nations to locate headquarters and offices in order to mitigate legal and tax obligations. We regularly talk about how governments can't reign them in and how they act with impunity.
But now? "They HAVE to capitulate. They are just doing it to survive." Really? Do we really believe that? Or is it more likely that this is what they want and if they didn't, they'd be fighting tooth and nail to stop it? I'm with the second option honestly.
Seems a lot of people share this view that somehow he's for the little guy, despite quite clearly being for the opposite. It's the same over the pond, there's a paranoia held by many that the government is out to persecute the common people. Very strange on both sides, it's almost Orwell levels of Newspeak.
Biden's pick Lina Khan deserves all the credit for aggressively prosecuting anti-competitive practices. However, Gina Slater looks like someone capable of continuing that work and a legitimate admirer of Lina Khan. Yes there are ties to Vance and the FTC office is likely to end up beholden to the egomaniac in chief. So the whole "little man" thing aside (that's baloney), that's one person that's not a shit stain out of all the shit stains in the incoming cabinet.
Look Lemmy, you're welcome to choose what you want in your life and what you don't. But being too rigid with letting stupid opinions of a project's founder cause you to reject everything, would have you miss the big-picture benefits of having such a project exist. If you look at this Lemmy development co-leader's opinions on transgenderism, are you going to stop using this software that lets you converse on an LGBTQ+ safe-space instance with no involvement on a social level from said developer/founder?
Vance, the U.S. vice president-elect, has said antitrust officials should take a broader approach to antitrust enforcement, and praised the work of Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan
Reading this confuses me greatly because republicans, especially Jim Jordan from what I remember, have been harassing and preventing Lina Khan and the FTC from taking action against big corporations.
Hell of she is doing such a great job, why fire her and replace her with a snake whose views are the antitheses of Khan's outlook.
But being too rigid with letting stupid opinions of a project’s founder cause you to reject everything, would have you miss the big-picture benefits of having such a project exist
That's the truth. The reason online "communities" constantly argue and never get anything done is because everyone is focused on not doing the wrong things that they forget about doing the right things. A while ago I saw a post making fun of some chuds who compiled a list of "woke" video games that they wanted to boycott. The people in this thread deciding to leave proton because its ceo said something positive about trump once don't strike me as much different.
Precisely. And this is much in the same way coming from the CEO and Proton official accounts. Republicans use Proton, just as much as Democrats. Until I see evidence that Andy Yen's misguided philosophy leaks into Proton's offering itself (and not just their PR channels), I'm willing to give benefit of doubt. Part of it seems to be not wanting to get on the wrong side of their leaders. As a reminder, these are the leaders that have been given a blank cheque from both voters and the justice system to do whatever they please with dissidents.
A CEO or any kind of leader gets to determine the path that their organization takes. Slater may seem good now; but we won't know until the proof shows up in the pudding, so you can only try to guess based on whom she take orders from. (Fwiw: I hope you're right)
Bourgeoisie liberals do indeed use the transgendered in the same way that they used gays back in the 1990's, as little more than a virtue signal and now (just like back then) they retreat from that virtue signal when it no longer suites their purposes.
Unlike the Democrats & other liberals; there is plenty proof in Lemmy's pudding of its creators' intentions. The generations long reconciliations that LGBTQIA people had to struggle & die to force acceptance in the western world; despite the Democrats; is now falsely appropriated to pink wash anyone/anything who disagrees like it is here.
I get you. It's important to remember there is nuance on topics/people you agree and disagree with, rather than jumping to "is against transgenderism", or "agrees with Republicans on everything".
Like you say, actions will speak louder than words. The further the Proton team can put their product and governance away from these opinions the better. The transition to non-profit structure is a positive step in that regard.
Did he (the CEO) really need to do this? Orange 🍄 Guy's probably never even heard of Proton. The transition for me from Tuta to Proton was long and rough, so I'm not prepared to jump ship just yet and really hope I won't have to.
And then we have the communists making Lemmy. Is there any moderate developers lol. Valve is the only big company I can think of that isn’t annoying. All the faceless Linux devs are good too
Glances at the child gambling enabled by the steam marketplace, an issue being blatantly ignored by Valve leadership.
Buddy, I don't know how to tell you this. I love Valve for all the good they do, but they got some serious skeletons, too.
Valve representatives were asked point blank if the third party gambling sites have a positive influence on their bottom line, and the dude replying sweated bullets for several seconds before nervously going "we.... don't have any data on that" while the rest stared daggers at him.
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism, and that applies to tech. I pay for Proton and this is disappointing af but not shocking. Corporations and wannabe billionaires always fold to fascism.
Gonna start looking around at alternative email services to consider but I use my Proton email everywhere, so switching away is going to suck.
When you register a domain, you own the whole name-space of that domain:
All possible sub-domains of your domain are yours.
All possible URLs on the domain are yours.
All possible email addresses on the domain are yours.
On your domain, you are also free to choose the linked services such as web, email calendar etc. If you are not satisfied with one provider, you are free to switch to another one at your own convenience.
People don't accidentally get on a board. The whole idea is that you actively search for and interview and even recruit people who best embody the values of your project. Then you get nominated and often voted.
Ingl, I think the only way to stay sane these times is to ignore what they say and look at what they do. As long as his products are up to my standards and values, I'll just ignore whatever he says to appease whomever
Agreed. If I haphazardly ditched services based on the opinions of tech folks, I’d be reduced to using a pair of cans attached with string and nothing else.
I take it as more of an observation and use it to be more mindful of what I buy, the services I use, etc. The reality is that we don’t know what happens behind the scenes with so much of this stuff, but we can still be conscious of it and use it as an opportunity to reduce clutter in our lives.
It's so all over the map, what does or doesn't count as toughness. That criteria rewrites itself in real time like the plot of a dream.
Avoiding or ignoring questions I would have thought is weakness. Letting covid sweep the country. Falling behind China and India with a weaker labor force. Being ready to surrender to Russia. Being unable to confront the truth that you lost an election.
Any number of mixed and matched definitions could include or exclude those from operative definitions of toughness/weakness without and make just as much sense. It's all just working backwards from tribalism.
I use too many of their services right now to get everything switched over to something else before trump takes power.
The swiss better fucking jail this guy if he hands over data to the us government without swiss court approval, per swiss law.
Now I have to find a new password manager, VPN, and email provider. Open to suggestions, but I want to find services that aren't hosed in the us or by trump friendly countries/companies, and ideally use open source software and zero access encryption.
Yea I previously used bitwarden, my issue with it is that bitwarden is hosted in the US(which was the only reason I switched to PP), so I'm thinking about renting a vps and hosting vaultwarden in it or something.
I'd be interested in the Mooltipass, but they've been out of stock for over a year, saying they're working towards a new unit. Last update I saw was about a month or two ago, saying they were 'close'...
I've always had it as a backup email so it'll be relatively straight forward to gradually migrate. I meant more in terms of its security/privacy reputation and whether or not a CEO has said/done anything concerning.
Let's not get carried away. The scope of the comment is pretty narrow if you read it closely. This is one member of a 5-person board that also includes Tim Berners-Lee. The foundation structure is also a protection against abuses.
Let’s not get carried away. The scope of the comment is pretty narrow if you read it closely
The only thing I want to hear from you is that you actively disavow Trump, or if you feel this is going to hurt your business, at least say nothing at all. Anything other than that marks you as a shameless suck-up, and I want nothing to do with you or your business.
Ergo, I want nothing to do with Proton. It's time suck-ups pay the price and see their bottom lines drop because of their dubious choices.
I get what you’re driving at truly but man we do what we can and accept we can’t be perfect. I avoid Amazon as much as I can. I’ve left google, I don’t shop at Walmart. I don’t eat chik fil a. I try to avoid known evil brands where I can knowing I can’t be perfect.
Proton gives me a lot of what I need and is exponentially better/more ethical than major competitors like Google. I am good with computers but not good enough to roll my own entire email/calendar/cloud storage system. We sometimes have to accept compromise or i guess just simply not participate in modern society.
if you disavow every company contributing to the republican party/trump you might as well sell all your belongs, and learn to live off grid. no internet access, no power, no retail.
we just dont live in a black and white world. its lovely shades of depressing grey gradients.
Just be aware that this is a peculiarly American take. In Europe at least, most people will agree that somebody's opinions cannot somehow pollute whatever it is that they produce. Be it a traded good, or art, or in this case software.
Actually I ended up coming round to his view on this. If Firefox has stuck to its principles on DRM, then it would have been goodbye Firefox. And then you would have had no decent options at all, and neither would I. The setting is still opt-in.
I'd also recommend KeePassXC in place of Proton Pass, and Cake Wallet in place of Proton Wallet. However, these were both Proton services I never used anyway.
Long time Posteo user. It's pretty basic but works great, is reliable and is very cheap. Only downside is they don't support using it with your own domain.
It’s like everyone forgot about the Patriot Act and NSA stuff. This shit has been going on through at least 4 different presidents. And that’s just the modern surveillance state.
I don't understand how everyone can be so blind to the surveillance that already exists.
Literally all your communications or purchase or browsing history, 90% of people's photos and contacts, everything you ever say near your phone/smart devices, your health data with devices like fitbit, cm resolution spy satelites, 4D maps of the entire globe being created via services like Pokemon Go, phones create and store in the cloud high resolution 3D maps of your face, mesh networked devices like Alexa now surveil without you even having internet access, your home and your exact location down to a meter are already being live spied on. Not to mention full remote access to all your devices.
Sometimes with a thin veneer of privacy on top of it, like Apple pretends to have.
Basically the only part of you that the surveillance state doesn't constantly surveil already is your butthole.
Even avoiding just 10% of this surveillance in your daily life is almost impossible.
Clearly unpredictable times with a guilty criminal as president who clearly has dictatorial/fascist tendencies...so the only option, get all slimey to still get a piece of the cake in the future
People have private lifes. CEO‘s too. I don’t see why I should remotely care what the personal opinion of a CEO is. And I am deeply concerned that this is such a big deal, no matter what their opinion is.
If you have a personal problem with that, that‘s totally okay. Putting them on a stand, is not okay. Let them have an opinion. Debate if you disagree. But stop making such a scene out of everything.
Again, why should I care? The company does not only consist of the CEO, which is also why I‘m interested in the things a company does, and not what a CEO says.
I can understand being fine with a nomination that aligns with his personal interests but from there the journey to « party of small people » likely takes a convoluted path.
Little crooks, if they're seriously backing the Republican party, it's because they're admitting to being a two bit criminal wanting to be a three bit criminal.
Ah yes, Fox News. The company that is simultaneously 'news' or 'entertainment', depending on which description serves them better at the time. These are perfect representatives for the era where billionaires are supposedly 'anti-establishment' and book burners that police other people's identities and force their religion onto others are supposedly all for free speech and freedom of expression.
I just don't know anymore. How do you deal with people who will point at a fly and tell you that it's a bird, while sincerely believing it?
Well, I'm embracing a new e-mail service. And maybe a new VPN.
Proton has been giving me some issues sometimes when I couldn't access my inbox, I can't have that when I'm in great need to see if anything has happened. Also, I've joined Tutamail just now and I can make a lot of folders. Screw you, Proton for endorsing trash and limiting how many folders I can make. Which sounds like a silly complaint and it kind of is, but who the hell limits basic features like that?
So I'll be giving Tutamail a year long trial, just as I did with Proton 4 years ago before making it my primary service of choice. Push comes to shove, I'll just use GMail again for at least it's reliability and as an ironic middle-finger to Proton for this kind of move.
He was one of the founders, but Proton AG has since transitioned into being majority owned by a Non-Profit organization, and he's only one of the five board members of that Non-Profit.
Large corporations like google have grown and thrived in Silicon Valley, supported by the politicians of California. So by extension they are partially responsible for enabling these companies to be the giants they are.
According to this article Google has funded 40 elected officials and spent $10.7 million in lobbying California's legislature and Governor this year alone.
If a president (even a shitty one) was considering putting a damper on companies like google, I would not be against that. We'll see if anything actually happens.
Aww FUCK. I'm a huge proton pass user. I don't want to go looking for a replacement but if anyone knows an easier way to set up email aliases on the fly and reply to emails sent to that alias easily like I can w proton I would switch
say what you will about trump. sure hes a small pathetic man. sure he is under musk and putin, but there are people under him. He may be a sycophant but he is the head sycophant.
I'm not going to switch away from them just yet... But I am going to start using an address with my own domain. My only regret is not doing this from the beginning.
Damn it. I just switched over from Google about a month ago. Worked on creating lots of aliases for my signs-in throughout the internet. I'm not leaving this easily, but now it's something that I'm thinking about and will bounce if things get worse.
Gonna wait some time in case this is an account hack.
Edit: Also can I just say that Proton's cloud drive thing suck ass. Like on the mobile app you cant even download an entire folder, you have to manually download the files, and if you download more than 25 files at once, it gets buggy and not all files get downloaded.
Edit 2: Oof, this motherfucker got some weird "Libertarian" vibes
Why he gotta praise trump's stupidity? Who the fucks stands there like an idiot when there could be more than 1 shooter? Its nothing to praise, its stupidity to stand there, if there was a second shooter, his dumbass would be dead.
Edit 3: Btw Proton is controlled by a board of five people:
This dude is just one of five, no need to switch providers yet, but it is a bit concerning...
My take is that a libertarian who thinks big government (or the spooky 👻 deep state) is out to get him is an attitude I want for the ceo of a privacy company.
If Trumps associates are going to jail for refusing to turn over passwords to their proton accounts, then I think the service is working.
Gonna be super funny when Trump turns on him anyways though, and bans proton from the US, because only his privacy actually matters.
Well shit, I was about to make the switch to Proton for email... glad I've been lazy about it, now. I'll figure something else out, mail-in-a-box looks like what I really want anyway
Any good alternative to proton services? For mail I have tuta so far, but they cover only that part and the webmail UX in tuta is actually worse for the free tier.
I've been using Infomaniak for the past two years, and I'm mainly happy about it (drive and online docs editor have been working really well, idk about the webmail cause I use Thunderbird).
One thing I saw was lacking in the comments here are some alternatives (Some were named, more self-hosted options, which can be good for a person, but not always)...
RiseUp.net and Disroot.org both are ran by collectives, and both protect your privacy. RiseUp has a log of how they've done so, as well.
It's almost understandable to bend the knee in the hopes of avoiding the coming purges, but this goes well beyond just seeking corporate survival. Genuinely disgusting. It looks like the way forward for Proton will be lit by the bridges they're burning.