I joined Proton just a few days ago, and I’m paying for it so I can use my custom domain.

I watched this interview and it raises a huge question for me (link includes timestamp): https://tilvids.com/w/q1mZzv6eq3iULLmGdV6w6M?start=6m20s

In this interview, Andy Yen says about gmail et al “there’s no such thing as a free lunch”. Then, in nearly the same breath, he boasts that most Proton users don’t pay, they use the basic service for free because that’s all they need.

So my question is: if there’s no such thing as a free lunch (which there isn’t), how come Proton can offer it?

  • southsamuraiEnglish
    14•9 months ago

    If you want an online service set to be big enough to be in common awareness, you need users.

    Free users are the cheapest advertisements possible. You already have to have the infrastructure built to have the service in the first place, and people will jump at “free”. It’s already proven that you can attract users and convert enough of them to paying customers by offering a lesser service for free to lead to profitability. Now, the model proton uses is way less profitable than Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, or any of the other ad servers social network/email services, but that’s a secondary issue, and not a negative one.

    My free proton account using ass is directly responsible for making 3 paying users aware it existed in the first place. And there’s a few more where people tried the service after I gave a good word when they asked about it after hearing of it in other ways. Every email I send to someone via that account is a form of advertising because non-gmail accounts that are also not isp accounts draw attention sometimes.

    Now, at this point they could do fine without a free tier. If they phased it out correctly, they could probably do it without pissing enough paying people off to the extent of being an issue. But the fact that they haven’t is another point in their favor.

    You guys, the paying customers? Thank you. Y’all are making sure my old, crippled ass has a good alternative to gmail without an extra expense that would be hard to afford.

    We free tier users are not really free, we are still part of the product, just in a non invasive, non abusive way.