I’m someone who earns a pretty pathetic income in a developing country, but I feel that Proton Unlimited is excellent value for all the services that you get. While I agree that, overall, policy is one of the best ways to address a lot of the most pressing concerns, there is always going to be a cost somewhere for the tools or the services that we want to use.
We either have to pay with our personal data, with our wallets, or some poor developer has their passion and energy eroded away trying to provide a free service that very few people are actually willing to support financially. In an ideal world, all the necessities would be free, like food, water, internet, housing, and personal privacy, but this is not the world that we live in, and if we want to see real competition to the monopolies slowly consuming the digital sphere, we kind of have to embrace capitalism and use it to our benefit - there’s never realistically going to be an alternative.
Firstly, you are using the word overpriced when what you mean is that you believe their service is unaffordable. Overpriced means something costs more than it is worth. Ente has very real costs, including salaries, infrastructure, and marketing expenses. Moreover, they even lowered prices for customers when they negotiated lower infrastructure costs rather than increasing their margins, as most companies would have.
Ente is registered in Delaware, United States—not India or Pakistan—not that it is particularly relevant.
Yes, it is, at least if you mean surveillance capitalism. If you do not want to be the product, then companies must adopt sustainable business models to fund their work. Even if legislation were passed outlawing surveillance capitalism, the result would be all major services transitioning to a paid model.
Ente not being reasonably priced is your opinion and a perfectly valid one at that. What I don’t understand is your insistence that simply because not everyone can afford Ente, they are somehow evil. Would it not be more productive to blame the privacy-invasive companies? Ente is just a small business doing their best to offer a privacy-respecting alternative.
This is false. A dark pattern is designed to trick someone into taking an action (such as purchasing something) which they otherwise would not do. Being transparent about how the monthly cost compares when you subscribe on an annual or longer basis does not meet that definition.
I’ll end off by saying that there are other options, albeit more cumbersome, such as Cryptomator for those that cannot afford Ente. Additionally, Ente is open-source and fully self-hostable which may make more sense for certain users with a limited budget.
I wouldn’t worry about them shutting down. They run a sustainable business, and I imagine their recently introduced free forever tier will help bring more paying customers in the longer term. It’s in the FAQ of the original link I posted.
Why is this Ente’s last Black Friday sale? Our prices are as low as possible and cannot be discounted further. But we are running one last Black Friday sale where you can purchase long term plans at a discount, to thank early supporters.
Thank you for providing context and correcting me. I will take your word that Ente is based in Delaware. But Vishnu Mohandas, the CEO and founder of Ente, is based in India, according to his LinkedIn profile. He works from India, and I’m betting that at its current pricing, Ente is a hard sell for most people there.
I’m not saying Ente should be dirt cheap, just that as it stands, you have to be quite comfortable financially to afford it.
Even so. With stronger privacy laws, fewer people will need privacy services because they already have some form of strong protection. I’m not saying no one will need Proton and the like. Only fewer people.
Now you’re putting a word in my mouth. I don’t think Ente is evil at all. I think Ente offers a great service and I absolutely want them to succeed. I want them to be extremely popular and challenge the hell out of Google Photo and iCloud.
I also want them to challenge all the E2EE cloud services, which they are doing. IMO, Ente has raised the bar extremely high for what a photo backup E2EE cloud service could be like. Filen, Proton, Mega, they all suck by comparison.
IMO, Proton should buy or copy Ente. It would make increase Proton Drive s appeal dramatically. Filen should also copy Ente. Ente is amazing! I have a free account. They’re just too expensive for me, in part because I already pay for an E2EE cloud service, and a lot of other privacy protecting products. As a stand-alone service, it’s just costs too much, IMHO.
I believe I made my other issues with Ente clear:
Also, dark patterns:
I respectfully disagree. I have no issue with Ente informing potential users of what yearly subscriptions comes down to monthly. What I take issue with is visually emphasizing the monthly cost and de-emphasizing the yearly cost, when the latter is what users will truly be paying.
To me, that is somewhat deceitful. It should be the reverse. Companies should emphasize the year cost, and then mention the monthly cost. There is a reason why Ente, and Proton, and many companies don’t do this. They are gaming you psychologically.
If I were to ask to borrow a large sum of money from my parents or a friend, and mentioned the monthly amount of what it would come down to first, they wouldn’t appreciate it.
How many times have I been called by a telemarketer or approached by a salesman who had done the exact same thing? Too many times. To me, that is unacceptable.
Proton currently has a discount where you pay only $1/month for one of their products. I was tricked into clicking because I was interested, only to realize it’s only for the first month. I don’t like my time being wasted like that.
Ente’s most expensive plan costs €23.99 per month or €0.80 per day. This is also the regular price, not the heavily discounted black friday price.
People spend way more than that on junk food or other unnecessary stuff that not only brings them no benefit but might also harm their health, so unless you’re properly managing your finances and aren’t wasting any money, saying that Ente is expensive and unaffordable is bullshit.
I would like this topic to remain focused on Ente—rather than Proton or the wider debate on the price of privacy — so I will limit my response to areas concerning Ente.
I didn’t attribute the word ‘evil’ to you; I used it to reflect how your arguments seemed to imply Ente was somehow evil.
I did not feel the need to bring up your concerns surrounding their social media posts because I don’t really have much to say. I can’t help if you interpret their posts in a negative way, even if I disagree.
If you open the original link I sent here, you’ll see that this isn’t remotely true. Especially for this specific sale, Ente exclusively shows the one-time upfront cost, which is, according to you, the best case. Therefore, I cannot understand what you are objecting to.
As for their normal pricing, per-month pricing makes the most sense as it’s the best way to appreciate the savings of subscribing annually. You can easily see the yearly cost by hovering over the price.
To be fair, the most recent social media posts I’d seen were from Proton. So I’ll leave it at that. The only thing I’ll say is that if you can’t afford a privacy product, you will likely not receive the message the same way as someone who can.
Yes, when it comes to the Black Friday deals that Ente are offering, the price is very clear. I will grant you that.
I categorically disagree that it’s the best way to appreciate the saving. Maybe for you. I myself, would prefer to know the full price up front. I think it’s very misleading because it’s the first thing you see. When see that I either go from positive emotion to negative emotion, or negative emotion to more negative emotion.
IMHO, most of the people would are not bothered or deterred by this sort of presentation, are the people who can comfortably afford the upfront cost.
I noticed that you did not address the point I made about the CEO, and probably a lot of his employees too, being based in India.
It is objectively more difficult to compare a monthly price of €5.99/mo to a yearly price of €59.88/yr (200gb plan). You cannot pretend that is easier than comparing €5.99/mo to €4.99/mo.
I made it very clear from the beginning that I do not see the relevance of where the company or its employees are based in this context.
This is just completely absurd. Imagine if a group of people came to a guy who is trying to sell his Bugatti and told him how overpriced and unaffordable it’s and that he will not buy it because his Volkswagen Golf IV costs only €800. Like, dude, nobody is forcing you to buy it, calm your horses.
@PurpleDime Five of your posts have already been hidden due to community flags. I implore you to please stop. It is disappointing that this topic has been so thoroughly derailed.
Anyone interested in Black Friday privacy deals should continue here: Black Friday 2024
I disagree. First off, let’s round up those numbers, because that’s what most people are going to do. In addition, the first two numbers you presented are the same price. The second set of numbers are not.
Even if I were to grant you that you are right, that one set of numbers is easier to understand than another set. The material reality of the situation is that there’s only one price that you are paying upfront for the discount. It’s the yearly cost. That’s the reality. Hence, that’s the price that should be emphasized, even it’s allegedly easier to understand.
Ente should do that, or present the prices with equal emphasis. But they won’t because they want you to focus on the monthly cost, when they are charging you a yearly cost. Not cool, IMO.
To the degree that a comapny is trying to appeal almost exlusively to comfortable middle class people and higher, mostly in rich countries, I completely agree.
To the degree that they are not, I disagree. If they’re are trying to also appeal to the working class and lower middle class, including those in developing countries, then the fact that the CEO in from India, and is based there, is relvant IMO.
It means he should have some understanding of what those lower classes of people can afford.
Would you disagree that in terms of affordability, the ability to protect your overall online privacy is somewhat of a luxury for most people?
This discussion is not going to lead anywhere and is not productive. One cannot cast the shortcomings of the economy and ability to pay for privacy which is a luxury on a single vendor who actually offers a commercial offering and needs to sustain a business and ita employees. I am closing this topic.