There’s been quite a drama between Ente and Proton. Ente accused Proton of targeting them through Google ads claiming that Proton is paying Google to appear whenever someone searches for word Ente.
Ente’s tweet gained a lot of attention and a huge wave of negative comments towards them appeared. Honestly it seems almost impossible that a company like Ente wouldn’t understand how Google ads work.
It looks to me like this was just an attempt to get visibility. I think this sends a very bad signal about Ente’s credibility.
This may be too blunt or offensive, but what the heck is wrong with privacy focused business marketing people? And what is wrong with the higher ups that allow this type of toxic marketing!
Privacy alternatives have an untapped market of BILLIONS of users still using big tech and other non-privacy options, but instead they launch hostile marketing campaigns against fellow privacy products and services to fight over a relatively tiny number of users.
I’m blaming Ente, Proton, Tuta, and every privacy business that participates in this nonsense.
The only thing privacy businesses accomplish when they participate in this filth is tarnishing their public image. Their entire value proposition is trust. Being sneaky and conniving destroys that image and your perceived value. It also drives current customers away by planting a seed of distrust that should never have been there in the first place. Paying for privacy services once felt like an act of goodwill, but this type of behavior makes it feel like the opposite.
For awhile, I thought the infamous VPN dirty marketing was isolated to that product segment and not representative of privacy products as a whole. I was naive.
This type of marketing stuff really urges me to say enough with this crap and urge people to start self-hosting. I hope these companies are happy with that result.
I’d say though, if you’re already satisfied with Ente’s product line & their feature evolution, don’t pay too much attention to the socials.[1] Its target audience is not you, unless you really like the algorithm memes.
Oh man! I’ll never forget that VPN dirty marketing, don’t worry, it’s starting to bleed over into some of the newer VPNs as well.
To me, the attacks on other services in the privacy space feel like terrible marketing. Maybe they get attention for a day, but the blowback usually hits harder than whatever point they were trying to make.
People end up turning on the brand, dragging out every piece of dirty laundry they can find, and then the comments turn into flame wars full of bad info and tribal nonsense. I’ve seen this happen with Tuta, those newer VPNs I spoke of, Brave, Proton, Ente, the Helium dev keeps throwing stones from a flimsy glass house, and I’m sure many of us remember that one graphene dev. And then it just opens them up for attacks. It just doesn’t seem worth it, and it looks bad as you said.
I think those in charge of social media need to take a look at the words from the good book of Wu-Tang. Don’t start none, won’t be none.
I don’t know why Ente didn’t just contact Proton directly to complain. And if they did, they could have mentioned that in this post.
I’d say this is a marketing strategy, but I think it’s just someone having a sulk…on the company account.
I’m totally fine with devs, admin staff of even a CEO having a rant on social media. But just using the company account to air your laundry is just silly. It makes Ente seem like a company of petulant brats.
But I guess it’s good engagement bait. And we’re all talking about it lol.
I get your point, but I don’t really separate the product from the company behind it. Public communication, transparency and professionalism are part of what makes a company trustworthy to me. A product matters but so does the way a company presents itself and interacts with the public.
Ente is getting completely roasted on Reddit for this. People are saying it’s not the first time they’ve come up with questionable marketing tactics.
Others are pointing out that they should spend more time improving their product instead. This and server issues Ente had, users say that’s where their focus should be.
I’ve also seen comment mentioning that Ente’s CEO previously worked at Google, so of course they should understand how Google Ads actually work.
Wild.
And if they intentionally pushed accusations they knew were false just to make a competitor look bad, that’s honestly a different level of dirty tactics.
Should the community do something so they understand that this kind of conduct isn’t acceptable here?
Are you really trying to say you didn’t know how Google ads works after having worked for Google? And nobody at Ente knew either?
Or did you know, but decide to gain traction by accusing Proton, and is that what you’re apologizing for? Just to get a clarity, because almost everyone commenting on your behavior on X and Reddit understands how Google Ads work, even if they aren’t experts. That’s why the backlash was so severe. They don’t believe your explanation, including Proton’s CEO who said it was “engagement bait”.
And nobody at Ente knew either?