These are my thoughts on the matter:
I applaud the employees that pushed back and have spoken out. You guys/gals Rock!! Thank you so dang much!!!
To Andy Yen, you obviously have no flipping clue who your actual customers are. Your views are incompatible with what I thought Proton was. I don't care how inconsequential of a decision you thought it was. That attitude over anything, especially security!?, is the exact opposite of what I thought Proton was when I signed up in 2020. I especially did not expect something like this when I became a buisness level subscriber in 2022. For me to continue using the services of Proton, you need to resign from Proton in any and all capacity.
Furthermore to Proton as an entity. Any and all who shared in this kind of mentality and disregard needs to be scrutinized and removed if necessary. Don't be crazy about it, but you know who NEEDS to go I think.
Look, we all are seeing that AI is here to stay. And it has gotten incredible at coding if I am to believe what I have read. The world is abruptly changing, but that is why now more that ever we need you to move as securely as you possibly can. Yes that still means using every tool at your disposal, but with the utmost concern and scrutiny supporting security and privacy. Even the crazy conspiracy/science fiction would never happen stuff, we're counting on you guys not being susceptible to it. We want privacy and security, not features and shinn-shi-curity.
If that is not the company Proton is striving to be, I will be taking my business elsewhere. I expect many others will be doing so as well. Imagine the fash.crud on top of all this. Don't know why I was sticking around truthfully.
CEOs exist to do the bidding of do-nothing greedy shareholders who expect infinite growth because they are deluded and uninterested in the details of their product. The fight is always with the shareholders, the CEO is just their avatar, but in this case he is particularly aggressive. Ironically the shareholder interference is the biggest risk to long term profits because they constantly fuck up the quality of the product and destabilize their market share pushing dumbfuck ideas like these cause they don't actually care how Proton works, or what the goals of the product are as advertised, which is why they're directly stepping on their customer base here. Could be they only want a short term return and they think sacraficing Proton at the altar will give them the biggest quickest buck, and they've told lil' Yen there he'll get his slice if he makes it happen.
The trendy answer today continues to be magical thinking regarding AI, that will somehow increase profits (ciataion needed), and eliminate labour costs. It's inherently anti-worker and it's just for a few extra bucks from what are over-glorified landlords. There used to be a think callled stakeholding, where your investment in the outcomes of a company are tied to its continued existence so you have to actually consider how the operations are affected by decisions like there, cause you can't just take your part and walk away when it fails. I don't know what happened to that model... Maybe worker action involving suing the shareholders for meaningful threats to their livelihood could gain some traction in changing the relationship.
Proton is run by a non-profit foundation. It's not a publicly traded company
Please contact the foundation board of trustees to ask for change
foundation@proton.me
The real villain here is as always capital/capitalism.