DISCLAIMER!!!
I have NOT done any proer research in all of this. Every bit of info provided in this post is only what I stumbled across, so I am open to be corrected. Otherwise, take all of the info in this post with a grain of salt
This post is NOT written by AI
Usually I don’t wanna talk about things like this, only to my personal connections, however this will affect my journey to Degoogling. I am, by no means, a new Degoogler, however I am new or completely unfamiliar to many aspects of it (like self-hosting). The community on Reddit has gone through a civil war on whether Proton has or has not been too evil as of lately
What happened?
(Not so) Recently, Proton’s CEO has been using more and more AI code. From what I heard of, they aren’t using humans to check the vibecoding. Also, I’ve heard that as times Proton has been exposed for not actaully providing the respect for privacy they claim to have
Why it matters
One aspect for Degoogling is trust. If there’s an open-source app out there that suddenly adds telemetry even tho they claim to be provate, that breaks trust. The Proton community has not been to fond with AI slop, and the (not so) recent actions of Proton didn’t help. This means Proton isn’t tooooo trust-worthy in my opinion
“oH, bUt It’S jUsT rEdDiT bEiNg ReDdIt”
I know, but this is wayyyy more serious than the other types of drama. And besides, Twitter (X) had it wayyy worse from what I’ve heard of. I, myself, am not a fan of AI slop either, and I would at least check if the vibecoding is checked by actaul humans
Ok, but why?
Some people say it’s not that bad, others say it is. I am open to any final corrections. If I am misunderstanding something or just blatantly wrong, tell me in the comments
Nah, the CEO’s messaging was full of contempt, first for their employees and then for the people contributing to the backlash they faced. Also reinterviewing people for them to keep their positions is downright disgusting and I cannot imagine the psychological pressure they faced.
But me (and probably other people) switched to proton not only to protect our individual privacy, but also because we care about privacy as a right. I also care about other things in general (for example good working conditions). Thus the company’s CEO coming out and essentially saying “money, money, money, money, money” and “you’ll all be unemployed soon lol”, in my opinion at least, doesn’t make them that much better than any other company. Thus, since I have a choice, I’d rather have my mail elsewhere in December, when my subscription expires.