Damn. My proton plan just renewed a couple weeks ago.
I have not failed to notice that they’ve slowed focus on security oriented features and are now focused on a lot of things I don’t care about, but I didn’t realize the magnitude of the cultural problem there.
Without the security aspect, Proton is ridiculously overpriced. If they want to compete with GSuite or Zoho, they gotta come down.
I’m willing to pay premium for a niche security focused offering. I’m not willing to pay a premium for AI generated crapware.
I became a Proton visionary after I interacted with them here on HN. They took PGP really seriously and addressed my very specific concerns.
I don't care about the AI use bur I'm very sad to learn they won't be "lovingly" crafting their products anymore. Less craftsmanship and attention to detail can't be good.
Thankfully, owning a domain makes switching providers easy.
> now focused on a lot of things I don’t care about
Yeah, I'm a paying customer and have been asking for a desktop app for Proton Drive for years. Instead, they've focused their efforts on a crypto wallet and a chatbot. (Sure, we recently got a CLI app which _is_ better than nothing but come on.)
Yeah, I'll be looking for an alternative. I've already drifted off of everything but the email service. The opportunity to potentially not due business with orgs run by insufferable assholes is all the push I really need to take another look around.
I loved Pirates! and spend so many hours as a teenager playing it. Not mentioned in the article was the soundtrack- it did a great job of keeping you immersed and the sound chips of the day did a good job with the symthesized harpsichord.
Important to remember that this style of writing originates well before the AI era. It's called direct mail marketing. It's the same style of writing you'd read when you got your physical junk mail from your physical mailbox and made the mistake of opening it.
LinkedIn shows me there are whole parts of our industry I never work with.
Long time programmers saw striver kids replaced computer kids. But their level of competency in technical companies is generally high. On the other side of the fence though is “the industry” which now employs a large part of the general population. And frankly they aren’t very smart in combination with not being a part of computer culture.
This has shown up on LinkedIn as “programmer influencers” who write in an extremely immature and unprofessional way, while also not saying anything interesting or smart. They write in ways I’ve never seen people write and it’s not AI or social media.
The problem isn't this, its enough people actually consuming it. These things always follow money first. Blame those people and appeal to them if you think it will change something, not venting off here among folks who are hardly the main source of this.
No, I don't have the solution for this age of dumb. It used to be that people were ashamed of how primitive they are, now they celebrate it as openly as possible and non-trivial amounts of similar folks follow.
Oh jeez, I cannot wait for the Words. Standing. Alone. trend to be over, it makes me want to hurl.
It sorta made sense when it was clever and the words actually made sense both alone or together, but now that it's become something every two-bit marketroid aims for, they force it even when it doesn't really work, and the result is atrocious.
Makes me yearn for pet rocks. At least that fad knew it was dumb.
Of course that’s a silly turn of phrase but there is a grain of truth.
Most people believe that the law should mirror the ethics or morality of the society, and absent something clearly harmful, most people don’t understand why something with nobody clearly harmed should be illegal.
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