this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2024
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Proton

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Skiff sold to Notion. All services will be sunset in 6 months (lemmy.world)
submitted 9 months ago by testeronious@lemmy.world to c/protonprivacy@lemmy.world
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Proton CEO official response:

Hi everyone, this is Andy here (Proton founder/CEO). Just got alerted about the news, and wanted to respond to some of the comments along the lines of "how do we know Proton won't sell out?"

The truth is, you can't know for sure, but Proton is structured in a way that provides a strong assurance, and we'll be sharing more about this some time in the next month. But for all intents and purposes, it really isn't possible for Proton to be acquired.

Proton is not a product of silicon valley, but a crowdfunded project that was conceived at CERN. Proton doesn't have VC investors (so no pressure to sell), and Proton is profitable (so no pressure from finances). To this day, it continues to be managed and run by scientists, and nobody goes into science to get rich.

Finally, Proton has scale with 100M+ accounts and 400+ employees. Frankly, if the goal was to sell and make a bunch of money, it could have already been done long ago. Instead, we push onwards.

Our work is brutally difficult, with daunting challenges every step of the way, and only the true believers stay on the path for this long. If money was the goal, we wouldn't have done any of the things listed on this page (https://proton.me/about/impact) much less given away over $2.7 million to aligned organizations

This year Proton happens to turn 10. We'll probably never be the cheapest, the most flashy, or maybe not even the fastest. But we will strive to be the most resilient. For as long as there's this community of users supporting our work, we're not going anywhere. In fact, the ideas and values we share together, may even win the future of the web. For that reason, we're eternally grateful for your support as we fight the hard fights.

source: reddit

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[–] LinusWorks4Mo@kbin.social 125 points 9 months ago (1 children)

the best corporate double speak.

"we are excited skiff will be joining notion ... and will be shutting down the skiff suite in 6 months"

[–] dipshit@lemmy.world 35 points 9 months ago

we are excited [to have purchased the development team for] skiff… and will be shutting down thr skiff suite [so developers can work on notion]”

[–] Rookwood@lemmy.world 52 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I am a Skiff user. It sucks that there will be even less competition now. It's basically Proton with the full suite and Tuta for private email at this point and Tuta is so small they will probably be bought as well. Skiff was a really good value if all you wanted was private email.

[–] dazo@infosec.exchange 24 points 9 months ago

@Rookwood @testeronious

Tuta seems to be driven by idealists and privacy activists as well. AFAIK, they also don't have venture capital and their user base of paying users is what keeps them alive. Which is also why it's still a small company.

I don't recall how Tuta got their initial funding to get startet. I don't think they were crowdfunded in the same way Proton did.

But the idealsism goals of both Tuta and Proton is what generally makes it less likely they will sell out.

AFAIR, Skiff was VC funded. The idealism of the founders are easily ignored when the VC backing wants to cash in on their investments. And that's what happened here, in some way or another.

[–] timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.works 3 points 9 months ago

It sucks but it's so hard to convince anyone to pick a private email to begin with. Maybe proton becomes the go to private and gets big enough to make people focus on private solutions that allows more competitors later on.

[–] RayJW@sh.itjust.works 1 points 9 months ago

I almost agree but there are more options for private mail than Proton and Tuta. You can also use Fastmail, mailbox.org, Disroot, or Forward Mail. There are even more options. But as the Proton CEO said, you can never be certain that a company won't be bought up for enough money at some point.

[–] dazo@infosec.exchange 27 points 9 months ago (1 children)

@testeronious

So I spent a little bit time to dig up what Notion is.
This is what I found when searching for it ... https://www.notion.so/about

And I honestly have no idea why Skiff would be interesting for Notion. From what I can grasp the only Notion features overlap are Skiff Pages and perhaps Skiff Calendar. It's so off I struggle to fully grasp this.

First of all, Notion is not a service talking about privacy at all, afaict. And that was one of the main arguments Skiff had.

And then the first thing this merges states is that Skiff services are closing down.

I hate to say this, but Skiff founders couldn't really have cared that much about privacy then, when they chose to close down so quickly and abruptly like that, without a continuation plan on bringing privacy to Notion.

I believe the Skiff founders, if they really cared strongly about privacy, realised their service was not sustainable in a longer run, with too high running cost and too low income. In addition they might have seen that they would need to invest a lot more into further development and that it was too hard to improve their revenue stream. So the alternative was either to go down with a bang (bankruptcy), or they could sell "something" to another company and make it sound nicer.

Right now I just wonder what Skiff managed to actually sell to Notion. Most likely manpower, if I should guess.

[–] LemoineFairclough@sh.itjust.works 3 points 9 months ago

I honestly have no idea why Skiff would be interesting for Notion. From what I can grasp the only Notion features overlap are Skiff Pages and perhaps Skiff Calendar.

Companies acquire other companies all the time. Notion surely thinks they can use something controlled by Skiff to make more money than by using its money another way. I expect Notion will use the acquisition of Skiff to start offering new services or improve their existing services in an attempt to increase their market share. They don't need to have similar preexisting services or products in order to do that, and there is surely information we don't know that influenced Notion's decision (e.g. a new product developed in secret that was only disclosed due to Skiff's interest in being acquired).

[–] Apollo2323@lemmy.dbzer0.com 25 points 9 months ago

Bro just for this I will support Proton! What a great company!

[–] RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de 21 points 9 months ago (2 children)

and nobody goes into science to get rich.

I mean, I get the idea but Proton isn't science so one can turn the argument around that the oh so poor scientists started Proton to finally make some money. Obviously not true, but I'd leave that sentiment out of future statements. I do hope though that Proton indeed never sells out, we'll see if it holds true.

[–] EmperorHenry@infosec.pub 19 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Proton isn’t science

Cryptography and software development is science.

[–] Telodzrum@lemmy.world -4 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Cryptography maybe, but software development much like actual engineering isn’t “science.”

[–] kautau@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

You’re being very black and white here. Engineering work both uses the scientific method (e.g. test a hypothesis to prove it true) and the literal science (e.g. proven hypotheses) to achieve the structures we have today.

In the same way, the formal study of computer science is through the scientific method, but that often comes as a byproduct of trying something new through software development, and proving, through hypotheses and testing, that the outcome is repeatable. Many computer science white papers have come out of hacky software engineering projects that were then formalized.

You’re saying pure cryptography is science though. Is it only science if you are a tenured professor or research professional, or it gets published in a journal? (Which as I outlined, software dev does all the time). I’m confused

[–] Telodzrum@lemmy.world -2 points 9 months ago

Holy motivated reasoning Batman!

[–] dazo@infosec.exchange 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

@Telodzrum @EmperorHenry

Uhm ... ever heard of Computer Science at universities and such?

Just one quick example:
https://www.eecs.mit.edu/research/computer-science/

[–] Telodzrum@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Oh, they call it science in the course guide, ya got me! Very clever!

[–] dazo@infosec.exchange 2 points 9 months ago

@Telodzrum

Here. I found a suitable profile picture for you.

[–] EmperorHenry@infosec.pub 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

What the hell are you talking about? Engineering is absolutely science. You need to know a lot about physics and chemistry to be an engineer.

[–] Telodzrum@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

The use of another discipline’s tools doesn’t make you a member of that discipline. Sorry.

[–] EmperorHenry@infosec.pub 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Other fields of science wouldn't be possible without engineers making the tools.

When electrical engineers make circuit boards, they have to know a lot of chemistry and many different forms of math to do that.

[–] Telodzrum@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago

So we agree, engineers (much like most any job) are important; however, they aren't scientists.

[–] overzeetop@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

Yeah, I read that as “we haven’t been offered enough money to retire to a private island on huge yachts yet, but we’re not closing any doors”

[–] hellfire103@lemmy.ca 19 points 9 months ago

Shit. Welp, guess I'm glad I stuck with Proton!

[–] spez@sh.itjust.works 15 points 9 months ago

God, this sucks