From Hotmail to Gmail to Proton
I remember when being a Gmail user was cool and “more serious” so we looked down on the Hotmail people. And that didn’t change with the Outlook rebrand.
At the IndieWeb, many people have Proton emails (myself included) and we may look down on Gmail users as “Google slaves” because Proton is so “privacy friendly” and Google is not.
Goes without saying that you do you and use whatever you want. I’m personally still trying Proton but I’m not fully convinced. I like the idea of a proton.me account but for that I have to go the subscription way and for that I have to be convinced that my experience will be superior to any other email provider (free or payed).
There’s been a lot of talk about you being the product when using free software and I agree. I was about to say that Proton is like USD 1 a month but I checked their pricing page and it’s actually USD 9.99 a month for the year plan and USD 12.99 if you go monthly.
I guess that settles that for me. Granted, that price is for the whole Proton “suite” which includes: Mail, Calendar, Drive, VPN, Password Manager and Wallet (whatever that is).
So, aside from Folkmoss confirming my suspicions, seems like Proton is not “there” yet. It does do the encrypted thing if you’re into that.
Anyways, this post turned into a Proton analysis so I guess I’ll come back to “the drawing board” of thinking about my email needs.
In the meantime, you can email me to my Proton email and we can become friends.