OG title: We need to talk… about the Proton ecosystem
Ecosystem is a trap. It lures you in with the promise of convenience, only to lock you inside a walled garden. Like Google and Apple. They start with a good product, but then force you to use the whole suite to get the full experience. This is dangerous.
Ecosystems are concentrating all of your data and your digital life in the hands of a single entity. An entity that grows so large and powerful that it will start making compromises against your rights only to find more ways to profit or protect their business. The larger the ecosystem, the bigger data harvester it becomes. It becomes a bigger target for hackers and the more products it offers the more data it has to give to the surveillance state.
We know that the big tech does this, because their only moral value is the shareholder value. [4] But when a private company starts quacking like a duck in the steps of the big tech, it should worry us the same way. That company is Proton. The maker of the most renowned privacy products that have always been meant as ethical alternatives to the big tech.
Today, Proton resembles more and more the ecosystems of Google and Apple than it does its noble origins of fighting the big tech. This is a problem. It’s a problem for your privacy and it’s a problem for the whole community. But you probably never of heard of this perspective, because none of this is talked about enough. There is a reason for this.
You see, most content on Proton you’ll find, is coming from sources that are sponsored or affiliated with Proton. And I know how lucrative Proton’s deals are, because Proton even tried to pay me. Of course, I refused their offer, because taking their money would incentivize me not to recommend against Proton products. I am uniquely positioned to give you a nuanced critique of Proton and how to solve this problem.
Some good points to be said. I find the overall argument a bit weak as it is mainly one of user erorr of sorts. Btw THO has some pretty good back log of videos on privacy; check out their stuff on burners phones and anonymizing yourself at a protest.
Disagree. Having all of these products means you can get them all under a single subscription for a reasonable price.
I paid for 2 years of Proton family to Jumpstart getting my family away from Google, with a domain for the family. Having said that, there is nothing ‘reasonable’ about their prices. Additionally, not too long ago they started nickle and diming, which is just a different type of enshittification (agreed that nothing as bad a Google, Microsoft or apple, but still).
Now that my family is ‘mostly’ off of Google, I’m already showing them how to sync all their stuff to my server while I handle the 3-2-1 backup. It’s a tortuous road, but we’ll worth it. By the time the 2 years are up, all I’ll have to do is move to Mullvad for VPN, Tuta (or something else, haven’t decided yet) for email, and we all use Bitwarden in my Vaultwarden server for Password Manager already
Proton is very good so far, still trustworthy for privacy, but their colors are slowly starting to show, so I’m sure they’ll eventually bend to the live for money over the reasons they claim we’re why they started Proton in the first place.