- cross-posted to:
- privacy@lemmy.ml
- privacy@lemmy.ml
You must log in or register to comment.
They should stop adding more and more services and instead focus on making existing services better or - in some cases - feature complete first.
Like proton mail? The existing service that this update is adding a feature to?
What, sending bitcoin? That’s not really a feature of Proton Mail, rather it’s a feature of the wallet that happens to be able to send bitcoin via email (I suppose so that the recipient can then transfer the funds to a bitcoin address of their choice unless their email address is already linked to Proton Wallet).
Even if you’d consider this a feature of Proton Mail, how does this have higher priority than a proper iPad/tablet app, or the ability to add a .ics attachment directly to my (default, non-Proton) calendar without having to manually download the .ics file, open it with a file manager and then add it to the calendar? Filtered views (for example: view unread and starred messages but nothing else in one list)? A somewhat usable offline mode? The list goes on, and that’s just Proton Mail. Proton Drive still lacks a native Linux app (I know there’s “support” for Proton Drive in rclone, but that’s hacked together because Proton doesn’t even provide official API documentation and stability commitments).
I’d rather pay for the individual services that I can actually (somewhat) use, like Mail (even though it’s not great), but their Mail only tier severely lacks in features (only 1 custom email domain is my main problem). If they’d then commit the financial resources towards improving the service being paid for, that’d be great.
We asked for Linux native apps and collabrative office suites not this garbage.
Like this collaborative document editor they added a month ago?
Yes I am aware. Thats a great start but its pretty barebones and needs far more developement.
All of this convinced me to give up on moving all my accounts to their service and just use the iCloud service I already pay for. Trying to get away from GMail and Google’s privacy policies, but it felt like these moves indicated greater change coming to a service I was sincerely optimistic about prior.
I won’t be using these features, but I’m not sure there’s cause for concern. The implementation seems very sensible and legitimately privacy-centric. The LLM runs locally and is meant as an very basic email proofreader. The crypto wallet is a likely an extension of the password management tech they’ve already developed, with transaction features that some people care about.
I can see why some people want these features, and I’m glad there are new alternatives.
Coming from someone who hasn’t gotten into the weeds with this company, my understanding was that they did email. I was considering migrating over to them in order to de-google completely.
This move, specifically, has caused me to reconsider and scrap those plans. Not every tech company needs to peddle ai and crypto bullshit.
… they do email, but they also do other things. They still do email better than the alternatives.
It’s kind of like if Chipotle came out with hamburgers and you were like “well I want a burrito but I’ll never get one of their burritos now, they’re just like all the other fast food now.”
deleted by creator
The issue is that they’re neglecting their core apps in favor of expanding their portfolio. There’s nothing wrong with creating these apps, but it should not be done until the core apps are industry leading and extremely refined.
The developers they used to create this wallet could have been used to fix protonmail bugs, or to bring protonvpn on Linux up to snuff. There’s still no first party CLI for Linux boxes, for example.
I will say, I disagree with this perspective as a developer.
Adding more people doesn’t inherently make the product better. You can have too many cooks in the kitchen and too many people stepping on each other’s toes.
It’s like the saying 9 women can’t make a baby in a month.
I think the other apps are moving at a reasonable pace. Though I do wish they’d put some more people on Linux desktop apps… Maybe even a Linux distribution “Proton OS” could be very interesting.
LLMs are expensive power hungry beasts of limited use.
Crypto is similarly a power hungry beast. It’s also primarily a niche pseudo currency that’s arguably more regularly used for crime than legitimate purchases.
“Feed what you wish to grow” applies here … and TBH I’m okay with what they’ve done with the LLM. The crypto wallet … I just wish we’d let crypto die. Bitcoin in particular is too unstable for the average person to use as some kind of normal currency. People also see it as an investment, but it’s a super questionable investment that is backed only by the arbitrary value we give it.
It’s also primarily a niche pseudo currency that’s arguably more regularly used for crime than legitimate purchases.
That’s true for cash as well, but that’s because of a few factors:
- credit cards are more attractive due to rewards
- sales tax makes buying things w/ cash a pain in person
- you can’t use cash online, the closest you have are debit cards, but breaches make that unsafe
Cryptocurrencies can solve these problems. Since it’s digital, there’s nothing physical to carry around, online purchases are secure, and some vendors charge a lower fee for accepting crypto (e.g. https://based.win has a 10% discount for Monero). Since it’s distributed, you’re not stuck w/ 3-4 “networks” to process transactions, so transaction fees are generally lower (e.g. Visa/Mastercard/etc generally charge ~3%, whereas Monero charges a few pennies, regardless of transaction amount).
The reason it’s more often used for crime is because few vendors accept cryptocurrency as payment, mostly because demand is low. The more people that use cryptocurrencies for legitimate purchases, the more companies will accept it and the ratio between legitimate vs criminal transactions will go down.
I wouldn’t be surprised if cash is more often used for crime than legitimate purchases, mostly because cash is annoying to use. That doesn’t mean we should eliminate cash, it means we should make using it less annoying (e.g. include sales tax on listed price and not just calculated at checkout). I see cash used a lot more in states w/ no sales tax, and I hear Europeans use cash a lot more as well because VAT is included in the list price.
I know A LOT of people that still use cash and use it frequently for legitimate purchases.
There are also several places around here that are cash only shops, and several more that will charge you extra for using a credit card.
Cash is an official, government sanctioned, form of currency. Part of the appeal of cryptocurrencies is they’re a currency that’s outside of government management.
The problem with bitcoin in particular is volatility vs any other reference currency is insane. You might have enough to buy an expensive house one day, then a few months later you only have enough for a cheap car, then a few months later you can buy an even nicer house (or maybe not!). That’s just not practical for most people … I don’t think it ever will be practical for most people.
If we get a “stable coin” that requires low power draw … maybe? But is that really better than just using a credit card? Are online purchases really more secure? People get their wallet stolen in real life, getting your digital wallet stolen is something that can totally happen too. There’s no FDIC on your bitcoin, a bitcoin wallet isn’t a bank.
Crypto fans love to talk up crypto coins but … I just do not see them as a practical solution to much of anything. We would be far better off improving security of credit cards so you can manage your purchases in a system that’s more like PayPal’s where there’s a way to see “these are the things that are authorized to take money from you automatically” and “these are the things where we generated a one time token and this is how much you paid.”
The things I’ve seen about bitcoin at scale have also suggested it could never even come close to the transaction speed of VISA.
I just … I am so far from sold. I found Bitcoin when it was ~1 USD per bitcoin. I wish I’d bought just $50 of bitcoin back then and sat on it, but I don’t think bitcoin ever has soared because of its merits. It’s kind of like this AI hype right now, block chains have very limited practical usability.
