A big welcome to all the new members of our forum!
And to our long-standing members, hope you enjoy this interview with Ente founder Vishnu Mohandas.
What were the most important points in the conversation for you?
Ente is one of many established products in the Privacy Guides community.
Sorry but it is not worth paying more than double price. Also if you consider regional pricing like I mentioned on other posts, paying 13,5 Euro for Google One 2 TB vs 240 Euro for 2 TB Ente is no brainer. If you donāt consider regional pricing then Proton Family 3 TB for 288 USD vs 240 Euro for 2 TB Ente, or Google One 2 TB for 120 Euro vs Ente 2 TB for 240 Euro. Another competitor is Apple. iCloud 2 TB costs 120 Euro and Ente costs 240 Euro.
Nothing can justify these prices, sorry Ente but you need to touch the ground and see the market.
I can even get M365 Busines Basic for 60 Euro and get 1 TB in Onedrive plus Office web apps and have business class security.
*Prices are yearly
Edit. Changed Ente price from 480 to 240 Euro (I calculated it as two year, dunno why.)
Hi. I understand your frustration with the price difference.
Hereās something to think about.
Dumping and minimum acceptable price by utilizing the already existing huge customer base is a weapon that is used against everything that opposes corporations, it is ABS of economic competition (does not mean the truth or the best methodology fundamentally, but it is very effective in practice as history proves).
E2EE service by default, when any entry threshold to privacy is available without the need to use even simple to use, but still products for data encryption, such as Cryptomator, this is also included in the price.
M365 is a separate topic of conversation,
itās a working tool for the most part.
What other topics touched on in this interview, besides the price of services, did you find important or controversial?
Additionally, itās important to note that Google and Microsoft are multi-billion dollar companies, so comparing their pricing to Enteās pricing isnāt just fair.
Proton has E2EE and also Apple has E2EE, so it is not E2EE being the major cost factor. I am not saying they should provide cheaper prices compared to others but they should at least match the prices, considering what the product offers. It is a photo management and storage app, nothing more.
In the interview he said that he wants to beat Google but he canāt do it with these prices. Also, they donāt own their own dataservers but they rent it from three different providers in Germany, Netherlands and France.
He said he canāt see his Apple Photos in Linux, why is that? Apple Photos is reachable from web browsers.
Also, he is mentioning his Google employee status like a major breakthrough but he worked at Google only for 11 months, and in his interview he is talking like he always lived in Switzerland then moved back to India because he was not happy with Googleās photography policies.
Another point, they mentioned SLA in their blog but I couldnāt find clear information about that. For a regular consumer if user can access his data without interruptions and data loss, they donāt need anything else. It is the providerās responsibility to make sure that data is available and intact. They can have 1 location or 10, it doesnāt matter as long as data is available.
I agree with Bhaelros, they need to bring the price down. Theyāre shooting themselves in the foot with these pricing. I was considering it, but itās way too expensive.
If they really want to compete, interviews are not enough.
When I see message like these above, I feel like I need to set more realistic expectation.
If I can chime in, I do understand the price difference when you need to pay for skilled engineers to develop your product, and you dont get money from resale of information like all other companies out there. If I were to use your product, I would probably not purchase a 2tbplan, ai dont see the value in that. I have copies of the pictures on my computers, and I would only keeps the most recent on the ente sync service, so any plan, even 15gb would be enough. Currently, I am synchronizing my pictures with nextcloud locally, maybe 30gb not sure. When its full, I move/delete to the photo storage. I also upload with proton, as I have some space there with the mail plan.
The advantage I could get with ente might be easier sharing, since my nextcloud is not available oublicly on internet, but then proton is, for fast sharing of zip files soooo.
Ill be listening to the podcast, lets see ente fohnder and features.
As history has shown, freedom - has a very high priceā¦
like flesh and blood.
In the case of privacy, we are being asked to make do with honestly earned assets from which taxes have been paid to ensure security and continued freedom.
Something to think about, this is my personal opinion and is not the truth in the last instance, open to criticism.
Keeping the lights on costs money, developing a product costs money, hosting it costs money.
There is always a cost.
I donāt know when was the last time you checked, but just recently Ente did reduce the prices, which are now quite fair IMO.
Do you really expect a privacy-focused product, that doesnāt make money by harvesting your data, to be free? Well, wake up from your sweet dream, but this is not how the world works. You need money/revenue to keep the things going.
Almost every product that I use that protects my privacy is free.
I use a VPN which I pay for and will happily do so, but the point here is that I shouldnāt have to.
You either pay with your data or with your money, you have the freedom to choose.
And how many of them hosts your (end-to-end encrypted) data? Iām sure most of them works offline. Also, Ente offers a free plan too.
@hxn has been suspended
Reason: No constructive purpose to their actions other than creating dissent within the community
Weāre honestly tired of these silly arguments which arenāt based on reality.
Looks like Jonah was serious about stricter moderation, good job.
We all are 
Yes, it wasnāt even me that did it either. The reason for this new policy is so we actually have users contributing decent discourse and not worthless noise.
Your past rejoinder in this context is inappropriate and offensive, especially to direct victims of the horrors of World War II.
If you choose to compare monetization to āpaying for airā I can assure you that you fall into the category of people who seek to simplify the fundamental, which often has dire consequences
(money is made between the lines)
We are in a market economy many goods and services that are directly tied to ownership have a cost of production and distribution.
I hope you realize that in a capitalist system, the creation and maintenance of any technology requires resources.
Companies incur costs and try to cover them at least to begin with.
Our reality is now, at the time of 2024 privacy is no longer just a basic rightā¦if you think about it, itās actually more like a set of technological solutions that are constantly evolving in response to new threats. It requires constant investment and research.
As our market economy is supposed to dictate - value is determined by supply and demand. If people are willing to pay for improved privacy, this creates incentives to develop appropriate technologies.
What we all have a hard time arguing is thisā¦we, as a species, deserve to have a balance between market mechanisms and ensuring basic rights.
Government regulation and non-profit initiatives could play an important role in this.
In fairness those resources are required in any system that requires creation maintenance or technology advances, it just depends on where it comes from.
I think to some extent you can do it āfor freeā but you need to be willing to invest something into that, either your time or resources, eg a server. If you want someone else to do that, obviously they need to be compensated. The fact is regardless where you live, or what political ideology you have, time is worth money.
And considering the competition generally is to derive that profit from ad revenue, it kind of makes sense.