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Proton is transitioning towards a non-profit structure | Proton (proton.me)

submitted 2 months ago by just_another_person@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[-] karpintero@lemmy.world 204 points 2 months ago

That's refreshing to see in a world of ever increasing enshittification. Wish more companies move in this direction.

[-] FatTony@discuss.online 29 points 2 months ago

Yeah, kinda makes you wonder as to why proton is adding A.I. features though.

[-] mholiv@lemmy.world 50 points 2 months ago

I think it might be because AI (aka LLMs) is genuinely useful when used properly.

I use AI all the time to write emails. I give the LLM the email thread along with instructions like “I can’t make it Tuesday ask if they can do Wednesday at 2pm”

The AI will write out an email that’s polite and relevant in context. Totally worth it.

I think the problem is people/companies trying to shove LLMs where they don’t make sense.

[-] plasticcheese@lemmy.one 72 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I am not a fan of this. I see it all the time at work and it's very obvious when someone has chatGPT write an email for them (it's always such a sterile and yet overcomplicated writing style). If it's a direct email to me, I tend to feel insulted that they couldn't be bothered to write those 4 paragraphs themselves - it would have taken them 2 mins. There is a definite human disconnect going on in society at the moment, and its worrying.

[-] Carrick1973@lemmy.world 34 points 2 months ago

I agree. I actually think it's a net negative as well for friendships. As in the case of OP, I would rather get an original email from the sender saying they couldn't make it, so let's meet the next day, but instead I have to read thru several paragraphs of boilerplate and AI crap instead, which wastes my time, and I know the sender did it, so I'm mad at them for being impersonal. At some point, we're just going to have people's AI responding to each other without any person actually reading it.

We're only doing this because every company doesn't want to be left behind so they go all in. It feels like Ian Malcolm said it best in Jurassic Park

"Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should"

[-] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 8 points 2 months ago

In bureaucratic situations, you’re expected to have a bunch of polite boilerplate. Or at least that’s how my dad keeps telling me to write emails.

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[-] mipadaitu@lemmy.world 54 points 2 months ago

Why not just write "I can't make it Tuesday, can you do Wednesday at 2pm?"

Otherwise we just end up in this world.

[-] mholiv@lemmy.world 16 points 2 months ago

You’re not wrong but at least my emails will be taken seriously by some 60 year old company exec that’s still mad his secretary stopped printing his emails for him.

[-] wholookshere@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 points 2 months ago

You’re trying to please a boomer that’s still angry that email exists in the first place.

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[-] MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 19 points 2 months ago

Then just write that.

I don't understand why we're having AIs verboseify simple information?

Why do many word if few word do trick.

How long until we start using LLMs to summarize messages over-verbalized by LLMs?

And offloading the accounting for context WILL bite you in the ass. If you can't remember what a discussion was about and what needs considering, you're no longer doing the thinking.

[-] mholiv@lemmy.world 14 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Because in my experience some business clients feel offended or upset that you aren’t being formal with them. American businesses seem to care less I noticed but outside of the USA (particularly in Germany) I noticed that formality serves better. Also the LLM uses the thread history to add context. Stuff like “I know we agreed on meeting on Tuesday at last meeting but unfortunately I can’t do that…” this stuff matters to clients.

I don’t offload because I don’t remember. I offload because it saves me time. Of course I read what is written before I send it out.

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[-] lemming741@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago

Non-profit doesn't mean that no one makes money. But it does mean they pay less taxes. If the C suite is full of funders, you can pay them in bonuses.

https://www.charitywatch.org/nonprofit-compensation-packages-of-1-million-or-more

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[-] theonetruedroid@lemmy.world 124 points 2 months ago

I'm happy to see this announcement. However, just transitioning to a non-profit does not make an organization good. They can still be greedy and take advantage of their user base. That being said, it seems Proton's mission statement resonates with a non-profit type structure. When you are accountable to the shareholders, they become the priority.

[-] wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world 44 points 2 months ago

"don't let perfect get in the way of good" or whatever that saying is. One step at a time, yeah?

[-] j_elgato@leminal.space 19 points 2 months ago

"Perfect is the enemy of good."

Bad, also, is the enemy of good...

I think maybe good walked into the wrong damn neighborhood.

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[-] restingboredface@sh.itjust.works 21 points 2 months ago

If I remember right, OpenAi started with this model too, and they do lots of shady stuff. Not that this is the plan for Proton, but I completely agree that simply creating a nonprofit that owns the for profit brand doesn't guarantee good behavior.

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[-] Unmapped@lemmy.ml 107 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

This is what made me finally completely switch my email and docs to proton. I'm so close to being able to delete my google account now.

Well this and the docs live collaboration feature they recently added.

[-] whotookkarl@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

Switched mail and I'll switch VPN once my old sub expires.

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[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 69 points 2 months ago

Cool. I switched to Tuta because it fits my use case better (2 domains, one for my personal email and one for everything else). I don't need any of the bells and whistles Proton has, and I also don't want to pay extra to get more domains. The Tuta app kinda sucks, but it gets the job done. I'm hoping my wife and kids will be interested in private email, but they don't seem to care, and I don't think they'd like the tradeoffs.

Now, if Proton revises their tiers, I might be interested. Give me something like the Tuta tiers, and I'll probably switch to it. I prefer the UX of Proton, but $10/month is a bit steep for me, especially since I'm not going to use the other stuff they're bundling in (I use Bitwarden for PW manager, have my own NAS, and I prefer Mullvad over Proton for VPN).

That said, it's super cool that they're going non-profit. When that's done, I'll give it another look.

[-] user224@lemmy.sdf.org 16 points 2 months ago

They also have mail-only tier at 4.99.

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[-] subtext@lemmy.world 64 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

This is definitely great news and refreshing to see from a company, but this came out two months ago.

Published on June 17, 2024

Edit: it looks like Proton just recently sent an email about this to their ProtonMail subscribers which is likely why this got posted just now.

[-] rockSlayer@lemmy.world 51 points 2 months ago

Good. Profit and privacy are mutually exclusive in this industry.

[-] Matt@lemdro.id 16 points 2 months ago

Proton is still a for-profit company and has shareholders who expect to to make money. The change is that the largest shareholder of the for-profit company is now a separate non-profit organization. It is still a positive move, but not entirely what the marketing makes it seem.

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[-] tooLikeTheNope@lemmy.ml 46 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Of course it is good news, and I'm an happy Proton customer since over an year, but this Proton blog post dates back 2 months now...

[-] Liz@midwest.social 15 points 2 months ago

They just pushed an email announcement out, which is probably where OP heard about it.

[-] wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago

And that makes it irrelevant because...? I'm a subscriber and I wasn't aware of this until this post...

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[-] Venicon@lemmy.world 24 points 2 months ago

Switched from gmail to Protonmail and Outlook to Tuta.io and love it! Companies that put privacy and the individual first.

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[-] rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world 23 points 2 months ago

Good for them, I love being able to play Windows games on Linux.

[-] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 47 points 2 months ago

They’re unrelated to Valve’s Proton

[-] nullpotential@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 2 months ago

To be honest that's what I thought the post was about until I read this, so thanks.

[-] ADTJ@feddit.uk 13 points 2 months ago

[-] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 14 points 2 months ago

y'know, just in case

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[-] ModerateImprovement@sh.itjust.works 21 points 2 months ago

Just wanted to point out that it does not change anything from privacy and security perspective about their products.

Also they are still operating as a normal company internally (they still offer their vpn through a third party provider and they still work to achieve the highest income from their products).

[-] TheImpressiveX@lemmy.ml 14 points 2 months ago

I switched to Proton Mail in 2019, and recently started switching to their VPN service to use port forwarding. Glad to see Proton is putting their money where their mouth is.

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[-] Baccata@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago

Didn't they get shit recently for AI and crypto related decisions ? Did they backtrack on that ?

[-] el_abuelo@programming.dev 11 points 2 months ago

Even if they did, so what? We should not then recognise positive decisions?

If we don't allow companies and people to make any mistakes, for fear of being forever scorned, then we'll end up with either unprogressive risk averse companies that cannot compete against their peers, or a host of good companies that go bankrupt from the slightest misstep.

Personally I'm glad companies such as proton exist, and are prepared to take risks, as they are currently our best hope against the likes of Google and Meta.

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this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2024

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