[surge]

Yeah, this just follows the rule of if its free, you are the product, not the customer. You're going to get ads and relinquish your data in exchange for the service.

For proton, I assume they have a free tier (I don't know I pay for it). So I guess they let people know to push adoption or get people to make the jump, but the assumption is they have some conversion rate to paying customers. For those that never want to pay for email as their usage scales, they're better off staying.

[n3150n]

Although I understand your point, Shoshanna Zuboff would say otherwise. We are the resource; not the product, neither the consumer.

According to her, "their" product used to be information. Then it became prediction. And now it's behavior modification, which they achieve by constantly mining us (the data we provide them).

At least IMHO, this is a more accurate depiction of the current state of affairs. Although in the end, it may be quite a similar metaphor, either way.

[surge]

This is a good addendum to my post, it expands upon it. I don't even take it as a correction, and I learned a bit. Thanks for this.

I don't know who Shoshanna Zuboff is (I'll 'kagi' them), but I agree with the points made. It's been an evolving strategy of how to exploit users as a resource for financial gain or at least cover the costs of the free tier service.

[Tijdreiziger]

But you paid for the OS (or the computer it came on), so it wasn’t free.

[surge]

The service itself is cloud based and no cost.