https://proton.me/blog/proton-non-profit-foundation
To ensure our mission always comes first, Proton is transitioning to a non-profit structure and formalizing our promise of people before profits.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/18741586
adopting a Swiss non-profit structure provides additional security, which a corporation cannot achieve. Because Proton has no venture capital investors, we can take this additional step to secure the future. Swiss foundations do not have shareholders, so Proton will no longer be dependent upon the goodwill of any particular person or group of persons. Instead, Swiss foundations and their board of trustees are legally obligated to act in accordance with the purpose for which they were established, which, in this case, is to defend Proton’s original mission.
Proton is locking itself into its original mission of privacy and a free Internet in the long-term. VCs can dump all the money they want into the project. Decisions will still be made based on core objectives, not the influence of assholes pushing more advertising.
Honestly fantastic. Hate being "that guy", but if a profit is at the end of the agenda, you can never really be sure if what a service provider promises is going to be there for good, or if they're already doing things behind your back for the profit motive.
Tuta is fine as an email provider, don't get me wrong, but I just recently swapped from them to Disroot considering I like the latter's non-profit nature. Just a matter of me becoming able to spare the funds every now and again to donate.
This sounds so positive. There’s still no room for complacency since money and profit are only one “currency”.
We’ve seen people happily pour small fortunes into online platforms to be able to distort public discourse. No profit involved there directly.
As someone who has been skeptical of Proton and avoided their services because it seemed too good to last (or be true), this really boosts my faith in them.
Not saying I'm going to stop self-hosting my own mail, etc. or become a customer tomorrow, but I'm much more likely to recommend them to friends and family who ask, and will absolutely keep them in mind for myself if I ever do have a need.