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Comment by Shank | Hacker News Reader

> Beyond the clumsiness, it shows a leadership that now treats the constraints that made Proton worth paying for as the thing slowing it down.

Exactly. The product is security and privacy. The thing being sold is that. If anyone could justify being slower to pentest, it is Proton.

I do wonder who would be demanding that Proton move faster. Would any user of their service ask them to sacrifice these attributes?

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From 404's reporting,

> “Due to insufficient velocity,” Proton is not on track to achieve its annual recurring revenue target by the end of the year, one internal document obtained by 404 Media reads. Proton’s year-over-year growth is also “far away from what the market today considers to be good,” and, “By all metrics that matter, we’re an underperforming company.”

So, the "market" is demanding it?

They aren’t public, so these are their own lines in the sand.

They are cash flow positive.

I guess capitalism just needs constant, unsustainable growth. Until your product and ideals are a hull of what it once was.

Not the market, the overall market, at least not directly. Their shareholders. Proton Foundation is the majority owner, so essentially they are demanding it as they have the power to set the ARR target that success is being judged by.

So basically: money, and their desire to have more of it, is demanding this.

Not shareholders. The CEO of the company and the CEOs of top investment firms are making the operation decisions to enrich themselves. The shareholders that paid money for their stock are the bag holders. The people getting rich whether a company succeeds or fails didn't invest a dime of personal money into the company.

A company like Proton shouldn't be for-profit to begin with.

But in the case it is, it should be run as a careful privately owned business, that takes pride in their products, not a profit machine.

It seems the majority owning "foundation" does little to ensure that, if they're not the ones pushing for more profit and faster delivery of crap

"Proton was created to serve the world, and the non-profit Proton Foundation ensures that this can never change. As Proton’s primary shareholder, the foundation exercises its control to ensure that Proton does not deviate from our mission to build a better internet that serves the interests of all of society. Our legally binding purpose is to further the advancement of privacy, freedom, and democracy around the world."

You actually can be for profit and profitable. It's the ever increasing shareholder growth that pushes you. Once shareholders demand compromise of the company values, the company values are compromised.

Sorry for the corpo speak, but this time I'd say it's clear and warranted.

One of the saddest things with these companies is that they can't be "done". Run a sufficiently profitable business for long term. Instead it is always more growth. I think we could have companies that don't grow more than say inflation and still make reasonable profit. But sadly it is not enough so running them to ground is inevitable.

https://proton.me/blog/proton-non-profit-foundation

I know. I already covered it:

"It seems the majority owning "foundation" does little to ensure that, if they're not the ones pushing for more profit and faster delivery of crap"

I think Proton leaderships saw that 'email with pgp wrapper outside hyperscaler servers' is a crowded space today, so now they are doing the whole 'proton workspace365' and they are falling short at it (I'm a paying user and for my own personal needs the workspace like features are bearable, but not good, unlike email/pass which are ok) so they are getting nervous.

If it was any other company we wouldn't even care, but if your marketing is 'big cloud is bad look at us we are so moral and so caring and respectful with you and your data' and they shit the bed like this in front of the users that are paying because they bought on this vision...

As a paying customer, I wish they would first the products they already have. E.g. shortcuts rarely work in the Proton Mail web interface last time I tried it. Or if I share folders with a family member, they don't get actually synced by the Proton Drive client (they can only be accessed through the web interface).

I hazard a better reasoning: The walled garden made it's users too valueable to not sell out to whatever forces it can find.

Apple is deeply in this camp; all it takes is one MBA's desire for bonuses to break the damn.

Corporations in unregulated waters are only as solid as the last captain.

I read the AI 'manifesto' that the CTO posted and I have to say I'm very much not impressed.

There are several different approaches they could have taken to leverage AI to create a more secure product for their users, but there was no mention of it.

As a long-time paying Proton customer I have regularly given them feedback to stop with the AI features and instead asked them to focus on improving their core products (mail, vpn, drive)

I'm not sure that the CEO and CTO each have the job that they want to have. I'm hoping the board gets rid of them this week.

> I do wonder who would be demanding that Proton move faster.

Whenever I see "hosted in Switzerland" my mind immediately goes to the Crypto AG scandal.

that the CEO of Proton doesn't get this -- that security is the reason, and their userbase is cool w/ the slowness -- then I don't think the company is salvageable until he leaves.

it's a complete mis-read of literally everything they have to offer, the raison d'être for using Proton.

now I gotta wonder what other stupid bullshit is this idiot going to champion?

will hold my breath to see if the company course-corrects and drops him. I chose Proton over Tuta years ago, paid for the lifetime membership, but will revisit that this week...

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