These practices being?
I would not go so far as to assert this as confidently as you, because I do not know what their intentions are. All I can do is guess at why they are doing it. But I understand your sentiment: you want to call them out, which requires you to make bold assertions.
But what I can do is say that I do feel coerced, and that it does feel crappy. I really dislike how they bundle subscriptions, especially with respect to Lumo and the Unlimited plan.
I do not know the technical capabilities or limitations for bundling plans, though, as I am not familiar with e-commerce. But if it’s true that it’s very technically possible to allow personalized bundling, I would also consider it a crappy business practice for not allowing me to do as such.
Can you at least understand why it feels coercive to the end user…? You said so yourself in laying out their bundling system: either we buy one offering, all-in-one, or go somewhere else. We are coerced insofar as we have to stick to their bundled plans or go elsewhere (which is understandably coercive).
An additional question for @PurpleDime (since you seem to know a lot about it, but do correct me if I am wrong) or @Proton_Team:
I have never tried this, but can we buy multiple offerings for a singular account? If I buy Mail Plus for one account, can I still buy VPN Plus or Pass Plus for that same account? If not, I would definitely consider it coercive if it’s technically possible for Proton to set it up that way.
And on the condition that we can, I wonder how the pricing would differ. Bundles probably have some % off, but by how much? Personalized bundles would ideally also have a % off, similar to how buying yearly would too.
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Calling a discount for bundling services “coercive” is really silly and using that language makes it hard to take your argument seriously.
Sure, you can be annoyed by the pricing structure or policies of any company. But coercion is about force or some other threat of harm. Saving by bundling is hardly that and standard practice for everything from insurance to combo meals.
Making email/VPN/other services takes real money. They aren’t free. Proton structures their pricing to make sure they can stay in business. Part of that is discounts for specific bundles they find market well. There is nothing wrong with that and thankfully they have been so successful as to be providing services for more than a decade while many other privacy focused offerings have long since disappeared for lack of funds.
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IDK if you misread me or are confusing me with someone else. Maybe this is @PurpleDime’s position, but I’m not sure since I did not read their posts throughout the thread here. Allow me to reiterate if you will not read my original reply:
I did not say that their bundling plans were coercive. I am talking about a lack of personalized bundled plans. I also did not explicitly say that it was coercive, I said I felt coerced because there are no other options to choose from, which makes me feel as though it is an all- or-nothing decision, which is beneficial to a company because they want and need to make a profit. This is something you acknowledge yourself.
When I said…
… I was not asserting that Proton was being coercive. It was to say that @extremelyBigGuy should at least try to understand where @PurpleDime is coming from.
I think this is the only part where I explicitly say that it is coercive:
I said I would call this coercive on the condition that personalized bundling was technologically possible but purposefully not being implemented. If the reason for it not being implemented is to make more money, then I would call that coercive because it’s their way or the high way, and they know that they’re a big company in the privay game, meaning they know we’ll choose their way.
But again this is just speculation and depends on the fact that they are choosing not to do personalized bundling. I again reiterate that…
… which is why…
As for what you said here:
I do not disagree. I just said that personalized bundled plans would also have a discount, which incentivizes people to buy from Proton more than if they kept the all-or-nothing kind of deals. This would ideally make them more money in the long run, in the same way that yearly discounts and existing bundled discounts would ideally make them more money in the long run.
But again, I think you’re reading too much into this.
I am not making an argument. I am not explicitly setting up any premises and conclusions. I am having a conversation with someone here and sharing my thoughts, and I happen to use premise-conclusion language, but that is not my overall goal. It is not as though I am dying on this hill, but you seem to think I am. I even asked the Proton Team and PurpleDime (and anyone else who read my reply) for clarification on whether or not personalized bundles were even possible.
Please focus on the arguments being made rather than the people making them.
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Thank you for your comment @olanography. I appreciate your understanding.
I’ve asked Proton multiple times why they don’t allow bundled subscriptions and they told me that it was a strategic marketing choice and that they could not discuss it any further beyond the fact that they have no plans to change their strategy.
That confirms my suspicion that it has nothing to do with technical hurdles preventing them from doing so.
Yes. It’s crappy. Hence, my use of the terms enshittification and dark pattern to describe these practices.
The answer to your question is no. This is what I’ve been complaining about since the beginning. It is also why I prefer to use the term multiple subscriptions under one account rather than bundled subscriptions, because the latter doesn’t necessarily imply the former, unless you specify it. I’ve made that differentiation various times:
As it stands, if you have a Proton Mail Plus subscription and want to subscribe to Proton Pass Plus with the same account, Proton will not allow it. Your only options are to upgrade to Proton Unlimited or create a separate second Proton account for Proton Pass Plus, which is suboptimal.
Even if in both scenarios, Proton is getting your money, they won’t allow you to pay for multiple subscriptions under the same account. They would rather you have a subpar experience by managing 2 separate paid accounts or upgrade to Proton Unlimited, which is their most expensive plan for individuals. That is the exact situation I am in.
I’m glad you agree. I’m not even asking for a discount. I just want to be able to pay for multiple products under the same account. I’m currently paying for 3 Proton products separately because of this situation.
Even if in the future I eventually complied to Proton’s wish by upgrading to Proton Unlimited, I still have to decide which account to upgrade. Some people might not know this, but merging accounts or migrating data from one Proton account to another is a messy, long-winded process. Aliases cannot be migrated in a single batch. The migration has to be done manually, one by one, via an indirect method, and you lose all your metadata. If you have 500+ aliases, it’s not ideal.
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Fair enough, I think I conflated your arguments with @PurpleDime posts.
I understand an annoyance and frustration people may have with how Proton handles multi-service subscriptions. My only issue is from where I sit people are blowing it out of proportion.
Proton is a great success for privacy that has yet to be replicated by anyone else. Fair criticism is fair, but arguments put forward that they’re just as bad as Google or Meta is annoying, completely counter-factual, and potentially harmful to what is a great (if at times imperfect) organization.
Absolutely no one is saying that Proton is as bad as Google. If I say that Proton is doing something they criticize Google for doing, that doesn’t mean I am saying they are as bad as Google. I’m not even saying Proton is bad. I think Proton is a good company, but some of their practices and implementations are bad and should be fixed. That’s all there is to it.
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