It says that “100% of the proceeds will be donated” and I recognize a few projects in their list that are worth supporting. While this still feels a bit like an ad, I thought it was newsworthy + something that the Fediverse would be supportive of?
Please share if you see any issues with this, and I can edit it into this post (or take down the post).
Full details on the link in the post, summary:
Join our charity fundraiser before it ends on January 5th
Since 2018, with support from the Proton community, we have financially supported non-profit organizations that share this vision, donating over $3 million to fuel a growing movement for a better internet. For this year’s fundraiser, we’re giving away 10 Proton Lifetime accounts, our most exclusive plan that gives you the most storage and all the features of all our current and future products, forever.
Starting today, you can enter the raffle to win a Lifetime plan. 100% of the proceeds will be donated, along with a $150,000 matching contribution from Proton. Raffle tickets are on sale from now until January 5 at 11:59 PM CET. We’ll announce the winners the following day.
Recipient details:
A portion of the funds will also go to a few organizations from past years, such as Tor, GrapheneOS, and others, as many nonprofits have seen drops in donations and are struggling to reach their budget goals.
this year’s recipients:
- Freedom House
- Free Software Foundation Europe
- Law for Change
- Ada Lovelace Institute
- Nothing2Hide
- Free Press Unlimited
- The Tech Oversight Project
- Open Data Institute
- OpenStreetMap
- Ladybird
I remember one time I criticized proton for positioning itself as community oriented while still being a for-profit corporation. I pointed out that as long as it’s a for-profit corporation, it would have not have any financial or legal incentive to continue pursuing its mission if it ever achieved a certain level of market share. But then several months later, they actually announced that they were going to put their money where their mouth is, and transition to a nonprofit structure.
I think that proton is perhaps the greatest example at the moment that to oppose capitalism does not mean you have to be opposed to free enterprise, and people should always think about this sort of thing when they listen to any kind of business leader try to convince them that it’s actually really important that they be allowed to cash out whenever they want.
I can’t imagine that their set up is perfect, but I definitely am going to have to give this offer serious consideration.
Proton is still a for-profit company, the change that happened was that the for-profit company was no longer owned by a single or multiple people (that can sell it whenever they want). Instead now proton is owned by the non profit that can’t be sold
Is this similar to how Mozilla is set up?
Pretty much yeah
I find it sus that they say 100% of the proceedings will be donated. I’m wondering if a fair part of this is an attempt to clear their image after they delivered environmental activists over to monarchical and corporate interests in the EU.
I think you need to relax a little here. Proton is a literal privacy focused non profit that follows the laws of where they are based. You can’t get much better than that.
Even in an ideal post scarcity would a non profit privacy focused organization that follows the laws of where it’s based is pretty ideal.
So, how do you feel today now that Proton literally backed their CEO bending over for Trump?
Talk about living in your head rent free.
But for the record I feel the same way. If it was a for profit company I would think there is a problem. But a non profit in a reputable legal system doing a donation drive for a good cause isn’t really “sus” at all.
Hey look it’s the bandwagon that thinks privacy focused services are above the law and talk smack about those when they follow the law
