Bit by bit Proton is slowly becoming Brave
this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2024
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Technology
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It starts with a Bitcoin wallet. Cryptofication is just another flavour of Enshitification. They could of at least used a crypto that is more energy efficient than Bitcoin not that there is really any green cryptos in the first place.
Ah, timely as ever, really riding that crypto hype
At least they're not launching their own token ~~yet~~
Why build Proton Wallet?
Early in our journey, we experienced first-hand what it’s like being cut off from the financial system and at the mercy of large banks and institutions — an ordeal that affects millions of people across the globe. In the summer of 2014, as the original Proton Mail crowdfunding campaign was in progress, Proton had a near-death experience when PayPal froze our funds(new window), questioned whether encryption was legal, and whether Proton had government approval to encrypt emails.
Fortunately, in that instance PayPal returned the blocked funds, and Proton was able to start the journey that we’ve been on for the past decade. However, that dangerous moment has always stayed in our minds, and we still keep a proportion of Proton’s financial reserves in Bitcoin.
Having experienced firsthand the unreliability of the traditional financial sector, building Proton Wallet is an important strategic move to make Proton more resilient and independent in the future. By enabling us and the entire Proton community to more easily adopt means of payment that deliver on the promise of financial freedom for all, we better insulate Proton from the risks posed by traditional finance.
Having experienced firsthand the unreliability of the traditional financial sector
*Under very specific circumstances that no user could possibly come across on their own
Incredible the lengths people go to to justify their shit.
Funny how the free plan is not receiving any of the recently announced trash, making it more attractive than the paid options.
I like Proton and I guess this kind of makes sense for them, sort of, but its weird.
Enshittification hitting hard
Instead of focusing efforts into maintaining and improving their current products, of which many lack basic features, Proton decides to (in less than a month it seems) expand their portfolio into crypto bro and AI grifter territory.
I was already quite annoyed and unhappy with Proton's services lacking things and the steep price (13€ a month and I can't even use unlimited addresses for my custom domain), but this is the last straw. Fortunately I was already planning to move out so I'm able to just set everything up tomorrow and be done with it. I'm planning to get Migadu's micro plan, move back to Bitwarden and get that Hetzner 1TB StorageShare, the three combined will be cheaper than 13€ a month and I'll be getting more bang for my buck
It seems everyone here think an organization can't have multiple teams working in more than one thing at the same time
That assumes dev resources are limitless. And for a company the size of proton that’s certainly not true.
They can only have X amount of devs. So how they allocate them says a lot.
Also given that most complaints I’ve seen at the top are about specific missing features for ages, I think it’s safe they’re putting their eggs into too many baskets.
That would make too much sense, something in short supply in companies these days.
Smart move for any liberated, international organization. Esp as inflation continues to impoverish people. Move into the future.
Bitcoin's value is significantly more volatile than the US Dollar.
Volatile means that in the short term, some may win, and some may lose.
The multi-year trend though, still beats inflation hands down.
What if I want to buy a cheese sandwich today with BTC?
A cheese sandwich can remain the same fixed price in dollars for years, with only the relatively slow change in actual value due to inflation.
I've seen BTC swing 10% in 24 hours. Does the cheese-sandwich-maker have to look up the rate this instant and calculate a spot price for me?
Will they have more or less dollars at the end of the day, when they need to pay their bills and buy more cheese from their suppliers?
"Just buy cheese from someone who takes BTC", doesn't help, it just kicks the can further down the road.
"Just add a bit of a buffer in the price to take fluctuations into account", means that I go buy a cheese sandwich with dollars from next door because it's 50 cents cheaper for the same thing.
As an investment vehicle, BTC is doing hot laps of the track (with occasional accidents), but until its volatility issues are sorted and it becomes "boring", it's not going anywhere as an actual currency.
Welcome to currency exchanges.
If you want to buy a sandwich in Indian Rupees... you either find someone selling sandwiches for Indian Rupees, or you have to exchange them to whatever the seller will accept (USD? CAD? AUD? EUR?...)
Yes, FOREX has some swings, it's not for everyone. Bitcoin may swing more or less than other currencies, depending on the day.
Does the cheese-sandwich-maker have to look up the rate this instant and calculate a spot price for me?
If you travel around, you'll find countries where sellers do exactly that: they pull out a smartphone, check the spot price, add some margin, and tell you the price in USD for whatever you're trying to buy.
Alternatively, you can swipe a credit card that will do all of that automatically. BTW, there are BTC backed credit cards too.
buy cheese from someone who takes BTC [...] just kicks the can further down the road.
That's how money works: you kick it all the way around the street, over and over, changing from can, to stone, to ball, to... etc. Those who manage to start with a can and end up with a Lambo, win. Those who end up with a single grain of sand, lose.
Your last paragraph is not how money should work at all. Money should represent value that ideally doesn't change, so that the money I receive for selling a can is worth a can, not a Lambo an not a grain of sand. What your describing is closer to speculation and pyramid schemes (NFTs for example).
Either try and explain to me how BTC could be an ideal currency that fixes the problems in existing currency, or try to explain me how it's really cool as an investment thing to siphon money from others, but don't try and do both at the same time.
Money should represent value that ideally doesn't change
Money represents human desire and trust. A can today doesn't necessarily have the same value as the same can tomorrow; maybe someone came up with 1000 extra cans, maybe someone licked that can (ew!), maybe deliveries have been cut for the week and it's the last can of soda in a hundred mile radius.
A can is worth "exactly" itself... only in the moment of a single transaction.
A can is worth "about the same" amount of a given currency... only when there is a steady delivery of cans from a steadily working factory producing millions of cans from a steady supply of raw materials with a trust in an expected steady production rate, against a trust in an expected steady demand, with a trust in the given currency's expected steady exchange rate for other products.
At any other moment, a can's price can change wildly.
What your describing is closer to speculation
Welcome to money.
and pyramid schemes (NFTs for example).
That is doubly wrong... but let's focus.
explain to me [...]
BTC is not an "ideal currency", just another currency. It intends to fix only one problem: to bypass banking dependence. For other problems, you'll need other currencies.
To "siphon money from others" is an inherent quality of all money; if you don't believe me, try getting some money (with any value) without "siphoning" it from someone else.
Thank you for taking the time to respond. With siphoning money, I mean not giving actual value in return. The NFT market was a clear example of this: get some hype going, sell the promise of great gains on your investment, once the ball gets rolling make sure you're out before they realise it's actually worth nothing. In the end, some smart and cunning people sucked a lot of money from often poor and misinformed small investors.
I think I have an inherent idea of value, as in: the value it has in a human life and the amount of effort needed to produce it. This has become very detached from economical value, as there you can have speculation, pumping value and all that other crap. I think that's what frustrates me about the current financial climate: I just want to be able to pay the people who helped produce the product I buy fairly with respect to how much time and work they put it. Currently however, so much money is being transferred to people "just for having money". The idea that money in and of itself can make more money is such a horrible perversion of the original idea of trade...
I have an inherent idea of value
I get where you're coming from, I used to think about that too, and reached the conclusion that the only thing that has any "inherent value", is what in the health insurance industry they call "qualys": quality years of life. Everything else, derives its value from how it relates to people's quality of life over a lifespan... but the relationship is not necessarily obvious or easy to quantify. That's where money comes in, as an approximation... but it's accuracy depends on everyone's realization of how many qualys are they putting into, and receiving from, a given good. The perversion starts at the beginning: with some producers not realizing they've received too little money for too many of their qualys put into a product, and consumers not realizing that they're giving too much money for too few qualys they'll ever get from a product.
Ideally, these transactions would be transparent and for everyone to see, so people could adjust their exchanges accordingly... but IRL they're a highly guarded secret by most actors, from producers trying to charge more, to consumers trying to pay less, to all sorts of intermediaries trying to insert themselves into the transactions in order to increase and pocket the difference. All of that gets compounded by the delay between production and consumption: the longer the delay, the harder for both parties to communicate, and the higher the opportunity for intermediaries to step in.
The idea that money in and of itself can make more money
It can't, not by itself. There need to be a series of mechanisms set in place to allow it, and some actors to set them in motion. Presently, it's the abstraction of money as credit (aka trust), and mints creating an amount of virtual money that has an attached time limit and credit difficulty on its return, with punishments for those who fail to fulfill their trust obligations (...unless they're "too big to fail").
Money as an abstraction is not that bad of an idea out by itself; it's definitely better than the gold standard, which was limited by the amount of gold extracted, while the reality of a world with an exponential population growth, is closer to a mechanism capable of generating enough money to represent everyone's qualys. Just need to find the right mechanism, and a way to set it in motion.
Currently however, so much money is being transferred to people "just for having money".
Influencers, con men, and other swindlers, are a consequence of secrecy. With total transparency and full information, most of those would not be possible.
The NFT market
This one... has much more going on than what meets the eye; GIF NFTs are just the tip of the iceberg, both for the good and for the bad. Bare NFTs are just a tool with multiple applications, "NFTs as digital art" are a DeBeers type scam with a twist (not a pyramid scam; with NFTs the scammer doesn't need to exit the market, ever), NFTs over ETH are a funnel to get people to invest in ETH, and so on.
If you want to beat inflation, dump the money in a high-yield savings account, or a 401k, or a stock index, or any of the other options that have something resembling banking protection/regulation. There are so many better options than a speculative investment that you lose entirely with a social engineering attack or a SIM swap.
Lower risk, lower reward. Keep in mind that 401k is not 100% guaranteed either.
lose entirely with a social engineering attack or a SIM swap.
SIM swap? You mean like SMS 2FA? (don't use SMS 2FA, BTW).
Anyway, if your risk scenario includes a "wallet inspector", you definitely shouldn't buy Bitcoin, or carry money around.
Nobody is going to SIM swap you unless you have a shitload of crypto and let everyone know about it. It's not an easy attack, so it would have to be targeted. Pretty easy to not be a target (not having millions of dollars of crypto on a wallet helps).
I want to have a shitload of crypto and let everyone know about it... where do I post my receiving address...? 😅
Anyway, my point was more about not using a SIM as a security mechanism, ever. It wasn't designed as one, and still isn't.
As for being a target... something like 2 years ago, I had a chance to get a glimpse at a C&C panel for some malware. It didn't bother checking your balance, just vacuumed all and every password from every app on an infected phone, along with all sorts of data about the phone, SIM, SIM2, etc. Cloning a SIM is so easy, they'll do it just to get your $50 worth of NFTs.
I… can’t tell if this is sarcasm?
I don't think it is.
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