It says that “100% of the proceeds will be donated” and I recognize a few projects in their list that are worth supporting. While this still feels a bit like an ad, I thought it was newsworthy + something that the Fediverse would be supportive of?
Please share if you see any issues with this, and I can edit it into this post (or take down the post).
Full details on the link in the post, summary:
Join our charity fundraiser before it ends on January 5th
Since 2018, with support from the Proton community, we have financially supported non-profit organizations that share this vision, donating over $3 million to fuel a growing movement for a better internet. For this year’s fundraiser, we’re giving away 10 Proton Lifetime accounts, our most exclusive plan that gives you the most storage and all the features of all our current and future products, forever.
Starting today, you can enter the raffle to win a Lifetime plan. 100% of the proceeds will be donated, along with a $150,000 matching contribution from Proton. Raffle tickets are on sale from now until January 5 at 11:59 PM CET. We’ll announce the winners the following day.
Recipient details:
A portion of the funds will also go to a few organizations from past years, such as Tor, GrapheneOS, and others, as many nonprofits have seen drops in donations and are struggling to reach their budget goals.
this year’s recipients:
- Freedom House
- Free Software Foundation Europe
- Law for Change
- Ada Lovelace Institute
- Nothing2Hide
- Free Press Unlimited
- The Tech Oversight Project
- Open Data Institute
- OpenStreetMap
- Ladybird
Just a reminder for anyone concerned about potential FSF involvement that Free Software Foundation Europe has no ties to FSF or Stallman.
I’m out of the loop what is the issue with the non EU FSF and Stallman (I assume this is about Richard?)
deleted by creator
Probably something about toenails
I remember one time I criticized proton for positioning itself as community oriented while still being a for-profit corporation. I pointed out that as long as it’s a for-profit corporation, it would have not have any financial or legal incentive to continue pursuing its mission if it ever achieved a certain level of market share. But then several months later, they actually announced that they were going to put their money where their mouth is, and transition to a nonprofit structure.
I think that proton is perhaps the greatest example at the moment that to oppose capitalism does not mean you have to be opposed to free enterprise, and people should always think about this sort of thing when they listen to any kind of business leader try to convince them that it’s actually really important that they be allowed to cash out whenever they want.
I can’t imagine that their set up is perfect, but I definitely am going to have to give this offer serious consideration.
The big difference is that they’re not publicly traded. Stocks are the root of all evil.
Proton is still a for-profit company, the change that happened was that the for-profit company was no longer owned by a single or multiple people (that can sell it whenever they want). Instead now proton is owned by the non profit that can’t be sold
Is this similar to how Mozilla is set up?
Pretty much yeah
Proton isn’t opposing capitalism though, it’s filling a niche created by other organizations’ poor privacy policies. Them being nonprofit doesn’t change that, it just places certain restrictions on themselves.
First of all, I did not say that proton is opposing capitalism. I said that to oppose capitalism does not mean you have to be opposed to free enterprise. As in, you can be opposed to an economy comprised primarily of capitalist institutions without being opposed to the concept of free enterprise. Proton is simply an example of such a business, which can be used as evidence for the fact that it is entirely possible to start businesses in a free market economy which are actually interested in solving problems as opposed to using the existence of problems as a vehicle to enrich a class of shareholders.
Second of all, “it’s filling a niche created by other companies’ poor privacy policies” is essentially nothing more than a restatement of the second sentence I wrote, which I will repeat here: “I pointed out that as long as it’s a for-profit corporation, it would have not have any financial or legal incentive to continue pursuing its mission if it ever achieved a certain level of market share.”. You’re right that them adopting a nonprofit structure doesn’t change that, but it does change their ability to sell out their customers at the discretion of a class of shareholders, unlike any business which is owned by private individuals.
I think that proton is perhaps the greatest example at the moment that to oppose capitalism does not mean you have to be opposed to free enterprise,
You seemed to use Proton as an example of that. Maybe I read it differently than you intended.
Second of all, “it’s filling a niche created by other companies’ poor privacy policies” is essentially nothing more than a restatement of the second sentence I wrote
I don’t think it is. My point is that Proton is a product of capitalism, as in, like any corporation, they found/created a niche and filled it. That you like this company and not others has more to do with you liking the niche than anything altruistic you think Proton is doing.
Proton is overpriced for what they offer, but they can charge that much because of brand recognition. Look at Tuta, a for profit company that offers similar services with more features for less.
Proton is a product of a competive market, and that’s a good thing.
The irony is, I like proton because I don’t think you should trust literally any business to behave altruistically, including proton. By structuring the business in the manner that they have, I don’t just have to trust them. I just have to trust that the people in charge don’t want to go to jail or get fined, which is literally not true for any business owned by private individuals.
Well yeah, Proton is basically capitalism working as intended. They’re a smallish business exploiting a gap in the market.
Being for profit as a legal entity doesn’t necessarily mean they will exploit every angle they can to make a profit. When a company has to answer to shareholders, like when they go public or sell private share to raise capital, that’s when it becomes a real issue. It really depends on their bylaws and who’s running the organization otherwise.
Non-profits are just for-profits for management. They make things slightly more transparent. That’s about it.
As an owner of a competing email service, I’m primed to dislike Proton, but god damn, I just can’t. They’re an awesome company. I hope that in the coming capitalistic hellscape (wait, we’re already in a capitalistic hellscape), Proton is able to defeat the 70% market share behemoths of Gmail and Exchange.
I’m really glad to see they’re supporting Ladybird too. That’s such a cool project.
Which provider if you don’t mind sharing?
It’s https://port87.com/. I’m still working to make it ready for business use, but it’s ready to use as your personal email. It’s really good for keeping your email organized, which is something I’ve always struggled with personally.
It’s behind a waitlist right now, but I send out invites about once a week.
Good job, I’m with tuta and am super hesitant to switch since ctempla dropping the ball 3 years ago else I’d ask for an invite. But honestly need more indie providers like tuta, ctempla and proton.
I completely understand. One thing I’m working on right now is custom domain support, so that you can either use
yourname-labelname@yourdomain.comor even justlabelname@yourdomain.com. That way if you ultimately decide to switch providers, you wouldn’t have to change all your email addresses. I’m hoping to have that available within the next few months.
How is this patented? I had a professor show us how to do this in college.
I just signed up to the waiting list. So how long do you plan to operate? And how do I know you are not reading my emails? I used to live in Escondido lol.
Let’s say I had an established company …not X…let’s call it company “awesome”. So your plan seems interesting because I could route awesome.com to you and then you handle the labels. Is that the plan? That way I don’t have the send all my clients a new labeled email for every employee?
All the service! Who ever wins gets storage, key wallet, VPN and email. Thats pretty fucking good.
I really hope Ladybird is able to eventually become a strong alternative browser engine to Chromium.
only for it to be a safari wrapper on ios…
Hopefully not in the EU.
Cool. I bailed on Proton for Tuta because the value wasn’t there for me.
I’ll be buying a ticket to support the various orgs, and I’d definitely use the lifetime sub if I somehow won. It’s cool of them to offer it.
How does your experience with Tuta compare to Proton? Was it a good move?
I think so. Initially it was pretty rough, but they’ve been actively improving things, so it’s better now. Once they finish implementing labels (soon?), I think it’ll have everything I need.
Some downsides:
- must use their client - not an issue for me, but could bother others; their app isn’t as nice as proton’s IMO
- no extra apps, just email and calendar
- no good way to export data - they’re improving this, but it’s still a pain
The reasons I switched are:
- cheaper family plan - I’m currently the only one on it, but I could add more accounts for €3/month
- 3 custom domains - I currently use two, one for family and friends, and the other for online spam; I could probably use aliases, but I want it to be easy to switch if Tuta does anything I don’t like; I’d have to get the top Proton tier for that
- I didn’t actually use the other services anyway - I tried the VPN, but I honestly prefer Mullvad anyway, and I don’t need VPN always right now
That said, Proton ultimate is a decent deal if you commit for 2 years. I just decided I’d give Tuta a shot and they’re pretty reasonable.
I wish Tuta supported throwaway email addresses. If it did it would be nearly perfect.
I DIY it with my custom domain.
Careful /u/hperrin has a patent
I need to figure out how to do that.
Tuta walks you through it, and I’m guessing Proton does as well. Basically:
- Buy domain
- Add to your email service (need a paid Proton or Tuta sub)
- Configure your DNS entries as per your email services instructions
- Create as many aliases as you want and have fun! I separate things into buckets, so shopping, games, etc, but feel free to go wild
You could also DIY the email service, but you’d have to look up the DNS settings to not get blacklisted by other email services. And even then, they could do an IP blacklist, so IMO it’s worth paying for a reputable service.
Cool, thanks for the guide.
I already have Tuta. I used to have Skiff and that allowed you to create unlimited aliases with their domain. Alas, it was never meant to last as they were always owned by venture capital.
Yeah I think it’s obvious they want some brand awareness out of this, but the projects they are funding, like ladybird, really are pretty great
And as a big proton user, I would love one of their lifetime accounts lol
Right now we need organisations fighting for software and media freedom more than ever. The unholy alliance of big corporations and far-right politics is just getting going, and if we don’t have alternatives to communications run by unethical corporations we’ll be driven into silence while they control all messaging. So this seems like a worthwhile donation.
I bought a ticket, thanks for the post. I don’t expect to win, but it’d be cool if I did and it’s a good excuse to send $10 to some cool projects
It’s a great idea for a way to encourage donations to these projects.
Got my tickets a few days ago, hoping for a win!
Just got one myself! 🤞
I’m in for one ticket.
I find it sus that they say 100% of the proceedings will be donated. I’m wondering if a fair part of this is an attempt to clear their image after they delivered environmental activists over to monarchical and corporate interests in the EU.
Pretty sure they do this every year.
Expose activists?
Fundraisers
Hey look it’s the bandwagon that thinks privacy focused services are above the law and talk smack about those when they follow the law
I think you need to relax a little here. Proton is a literal privacy focused non profit that follows the laws of where they are based. You can’t get much better than that.
Even in an ideal post scarcity would a non profit privacy focused organization that follows the laws of where it’s based is pretty ideal.
They literally gave over user information. That is what literal means. What their marketing claims is not literal.
Are you referring to the case where what proton handed over was only identifiable information because the moron chose their appleID email as recovery email and law enforcement got their real identity from that and not actually from proton?
They were required by law to give out whatever I formation they had, which is barely anything. Proton (and other similar services) aren’t exempt from the law, despite what you may think.
Pure bullshit And people loves to eat it
Care to elaborate?
I wish these people would stop fucking spamming me about this. I fucking get it, stop emailing me about it
Is this a bad time to mention the Proton 2024 Lifetime account fundraiser for online freedom ends on January 5th?
I didn’t mind Proton’s as much, but holiday season as a whole got annoying with all the emails. Mozilla in particular, I almost unsubscribed from their emails
