New 3 hour interview with Andy Yen of Proton.
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Looking forward to watching/listening to it.
Commentary as I watch this for others:
Whoa. Andy just said Swiss is doing “crazy shit” and now Proton is moving or already moved to Germany?
Their entire marketing and advertising system needs to change because they should not keep claiming. Also, he says its split between CH and DE with some Proton services. I think it should be clear that Proton Lumo is in DE/Frankfurt.
Proton is definitely diversifying their locations and where they operate from. Not everything is Swiss, that’s for sure. If they don’t begin making this clear for what is where, I think that’s when people will begin to really hate Proton. Hope they get their marketing in order.
For those who would rather listen to the podcast this is the RSS feed for it.
Also links below:
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Andy Yen has gotten a lot better in/with interviews. He explains really well for how and why big tech and lack of privacy kills democracy and all that we hold valuable here on this forum. Provides examples and everything.
He makes a case for why Email was the first product.
He says privacy is a spectrum, and Proton exists on the higher side to provide real usable alternatives so you stay away from big tech and their terrible practices on you as a product.
“..would be insane to use Google..” in reference to disadvantaged folks and people who are actively trying to safeguard themselves from the authorities.
PayPal blocked Proton’s campaign while it were being born. Then they got all the crypto folks who donated. One of the early backers was Steve Wozniak.
Early users were journalists. Others were crypto folks. Became mainstream in 2016 with everyone.
Andy speaks on messaging/IMs. “Not yet” he says though not a pre-requisite to build a platform. Signal is good but also believes that in Europe, people consider it American and that seems like enough of a black mark on the product, Signal’s quality notwithstanding. Odd take but alright.
Andy speaks on Telegram. Says Pavel operated with a “fuck the police” attitude. Says its technically open source and bets that their encryption is sound when you do enable it. Doesn’t speak on metadata. Odd again. Though he does emphasize that not having by default is a problem. He could have more vehemently discouraged usage of Telegram because it is inferior and encryption/privacy is not by default.
He says WhatsApp is not safe. Now he speaks about metadata but not when talking about Telegram.
He speaks on jurisdictions again and reiterates that Proton still applies and works as far as Swiss laws goes. He clarifies that he can only be approached and oblige to Swiss authorities. No other country or authority can directly ask Proton for info. And only requests for info that is legal in Swiss can be applied to Proton.
The video from 02:32 (2 hr 32 min) is also interesting.
Most of the video is worth the watch. People can skip the while AI discussion if they want.
Andy also says that he is aware of Proton Messenger that many people are asking for but this reminds me of what @nateb said in the last stream if I remember correctly: what problem will it solve and how is it going to be different and better worth using? I think this is where Andy and proton is stuck at. Figuring this out because we already have Signal but doesn’t have the feature set of WhatsApp and other collaborative functionality. Signal is still primarily best for one on one even though groups can be made and used.
Andy also explains the Proton’s structure and speaks about that and the thinking behind the change and how it works and why it exists the way it does.