Since Proton’s CEO decided to endorse the incoming fascist government in the US (Reddit thread; archived tweet; archived comments [1], [2] on official Proton accounts) and, as of the publishing date of this post, remained CEO, I’ve been looking for an exit from Proton’s ecosystem. Which sucks because, while not the best in class, their services were fine. I didn’t use Proton Mail as my primary (or anything else as primary, to be honest), but they were services I was trying to leverage more, especially Drive.
The issue, and the reason for the exit, is that Proton isn’t really selling what are effectively commodity internet services. Yes, you’re paying for and using email, calendar, cloud storage, VPN, and a password safe. But you can obtain better designed and more responsive apps for all of those things (because, let’s be honest here, Proton’s stuff is sloooooow).
What Proton was really selling was trust. Trust that their systems are safe. Safe from prying eyes, safe from bad actors, safe from corporate and governmental spying. But, a CEO that openly endorses what promises to be one of the worst regimes in US history, but does so on corporate accounts in violation of Swiss laws that prohibit such actions, then faces no consequences beyond having to issue mealy-mouthed apologies and ignore the objections of customers… Well, it’s hard to trust a company like that.
So, it’s time to look for technology alternatives that align more closely to my ideals. Nothing is 100%, but I also don’t have to knowingly give money to a company that has failed the most basic test (a test most American CEOs are failing at the moment).
With what is likely to transpire in America stemming from the next administration, it’s also time to evaluate what needs to be out there in the first place. Cloud storage in particular is a major convenience, but do I really need to have my docs available from any device anywhere? Probably not. I’m fond of reminding people in my day job that “Data is a liability.” If you have it, you have to manage it, preserve it, leave it alone, and delete it when asked. Most cloud storage solutions do the first two just fine; the other bits, not so much. With “AI” getting shoved into every moronic place product managers can think of, more and more cloud storage is being clandestine caches of training data, whether you the customer are informed or not.
So, it’s back to the search engines to try and figure out how much I can host on my own via a Synology, what I can put on a shared host, and what just needs to go away.
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