Proton's Ecosystem¶

Proton, the provider of ProtonMail and, crucially, other services has been in the news recently. A leaked internal document and a released manifesto showed that Proton leadership have taken a big swig from the AI Kool-Aid bottle. May customers were not amused by the idea that gen-AI would play a bigger role in software development or by the way the C-Suite were treating Proton engineers, who were informed that they would be "re-interviewed".

The "re-interviews" were cancelled after a public backlash and Proton issued a public statement. Make of it what you will. I think this was a big mis-step by the C-Suite. However, it is something else that has worried me for a while and I suspect it does have something to do with these events.

Proton are no longer just offering encrypted eMail, they offer a whole ecosystem of services, comparable to that of Google with their Google Workspace offering. Some of the services were like bananas - a bit green on arrival - but my overall impression so far is that they deliver pretty good value for money. I have encountered what I would call inconsistencies and incomplete integrations more than straightforward bugs.

Not too long ago, I took part in a survey Proton were running and one comment I made was that they should stop adding more stuff and focus on the core of their promise, privacy, and on offering a reliable service instead of getting too distracted and spreading available effort too thin. Now it seems they may be looking to enter the browser market with a Chromium-based browser (really, Chromium?).

Apart from the question of quality and integration, I think it is also a bad idea to use Proton for so many services. This will lead to lock-in - precisely the reason why I decided to minimize my use of Google's services. With every decision to adopt another Proton service, we make it harder for ourselves to quit, which makes it harder to hold their C-Suite to account.

When the C-Suite acts like any from Silicon Valley, I worry about what their talk of "the mission" is worth. Proton AG is privately held and since a 2024 restructuring, the Proton Foundation holds the majority of votes. That seems like a good thing to me. However, private ownership also makes it difficult to assess the financial health of Proton. On thing is clear, though: they are tiny compared to Goliath Google.

Maybe the reason the C-Suite got so excited about agentic coding was that it seemed like the slingshot they needed. I do hope that the backlash has a positive effect. I agree that no one in the software business can afford to ignore gen-AI but spreading fear amongst your engineers is probably not a good strategy for the plucky upstart.

Rather than jumping ship, I will take steps to minimize the lock-in to Proton services. For example, I decided not to adopt Proton Pass but instead to go with KeePassXC, to keep my password local and figure out a backup scheme that does not rely on cloud services but still gives me an off-site copy.