Yeah, even of the companies don’t pocket the difference, he’s an idiot to suggest that this will cut inflation.
This guy is just not very smart, I think.
That post seems to be missing.
lepinkainen 44 points a year ago
Every store does this. Even Holy Valve
glimse 12 points a year ago
Or he's just shitting on other companies who he knows are too greedy to do the same. Proton is getting positive press for this and he's leaning into it with a bit of hyperbole
Not saying he's a genius or anything, he's just a spokesperson doing spokesperson things
paraphrand 2 points a year ago
How many years until prices go up? I bet they marked down 1-2 years where they realize they can’t up the prices. But after, it will creep up.
Ulrich 3 points a year ago
Interesting that Andy Yen does not have a Wiki page. But Proton says "Previously, Andy was a research scientist at CERN and has a PhD in particle physics from Harvard University." so, I think he's very smart, he's just outside of his lane here.
sp3ctr4l 2 points a year ago
So, I initially wanted to just kneejerk respond yes, it is absurd to suggest this ruling against Apple... would have any kind of generally noticable effect on inflation.
But I wanted to check the actual numbers.
Ok, so, total US consumer spending in 2024 is about $64 Trillion.
... The Apple App Store generated $105 Billion in revenue in 2024.
Ok, napkin math: 30% off of lets just say literally all App Store payments... , ok, we've cut costs by about $32 Billion... shave that off the $64 Trillion...
And voila!
A rough general price reduction of... 0.05%
Call a median US yearly income $60K, and they've saved $30 bucks. Maybe the cost of either one or two DoorDash meals, depending on where you live.... probably much closer to just one.
We're saved from inflation rofl!
sugar_in_your_tea 10 points a year ago
could help cut inflation in the US
I highly doubt Apple App Store revenues are a significant portion of the CPI.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA 1 point a year ago
I mean, let's not kid ourselves that it has no effect, but it's not even in the basket
sugar_in_your_tea 1 point a year ago
In a sufficiently competitive market, the maximum is related to costs.
Proton is trying to get cheap marketing.
sugar_in_your_tea 1 point a year ago
With enough competition, someone is going to compete on price to attract customers. They obviously can't sell for less than their costs (again, sufficiently competitive so you don't get monopolies starving their competition), so that's the floor for what they can sustainably charge.
It doesn't matter what the service is, if there are enough viable alternatives, at least one of them will go for the value play. Customers aren't willing to pay more than they have to, so they'll be attracted to lower cost options.
cupcakezealot -5 points a year ago
i'm scared how many ceos don't understand that rapid fall of inflation or zero inflation is bad because it means your economy is stagnant.
Saleh 6 points a year ago
That is a very broad generalization. First of all inflation is not just some co-product of economic activity. It has specific reasons. An economy is not stagnant because the oil price sinks after geopolitical tensions ease. An economy is not stagnant because businesses are kept from price gouging in cartels or monopoly situations.
Also "stagnant" is not inherently bad. The reason why we need economic growth is because the super rich are siphoning off more and more wealth, so economic growth is the only thing keeping poor people from revolting. A zero growth or even degrowth economy could serve the people very well, if wealth wouldn't be hoarded away by select few.
philycheeze 129 points a year ago
Do he still think fascism is good for small businesses though?
gimmemahlulz 0 points a year ago path: 0 16891118 16908208 16928591, hotness: undefined, score: 0, children: 0
philycheeze 2 points a year ago
I’m not going to willingly put my money towards someone who supports that kind of thing. The first response to my comment was a very level headed response and provided evidence that he does not directly support the administration.
Still doesn’t provide me a lot of consumer confidence though.
gimmemahlulz 5 points a year ago
Political views are 100% the issue, they drive all other business decisions. If you're fucked enough to support what's going on in the US government, I can't trust you to be a normal human, let alone run a business.
Fuck off with your apologisim for nazis
radon12445 -87 points a year ago
If only he ever said that you weren't making up bullshit by misrepresenting his statement.
Atelopus-zeteki 82 points a year ago
And article on the topic of what Andy Yen said: https://techissuestoday.com/...
barryamelton 7 points a year ago
It's always this exact article "on the topic" that gets posted in response. I remember his posts on social networks though.
ObviouslyNotBanana 7 points a year ago
So, while his comment wasn't entirely neutral I don't see any endorsement of fascism in there.
stardust 14 points a year ago
It was the same with Elon before he went head first into facism. They usually start by selling themselves as liberal with some occasional praise of conservatives. Then later claim they are moderate or the go to favorite of tech bros claiming they are libertarian, since saying they are conservative might receive backlash.
philycheeze -8 points a year ago
So not really. Thanks for the actual answer.
Edit: goddamn, you actually changed my view somewhat and people still go piling on lol
renegadespork 5 points a year ago
https://x.com/andyyen/status/1864436449942110660
Seems pretty clear to me.
gofsckyourself 15 points a year ago
path: 0 16891118 16891167 16894848 16900490, hotness: undefined, score: 15, children: 0
Better link
commander 92 points a year ago
Damn. People here sure love purity testing. The guy could pay for their cancer treatment and still slap him every chance because they got it wrong publicly in the past but once you get it wrong publicly once, you're out of the club. Go be a conservative we don't want you. When someone at Tuta has a bad year and ends up in the wrong publicly, find another email service to try and convince people to go too. Probably worse in functionality than Tuta as you go down to smaller and worse funded efforts in this niche field of Internet activism
But people here do it here too to Mozilla because they don't like their social outreach programs and their attempts to get advertising revenue so screw Mozilla too. So because nothing but perfection is acceptable, push away people that may be adjacent/left leaning right and switch to less developed products. Switch from Firefox and attack Mozilla who do the bulk of Firefox development and use Waterfox who do a custom deployment/build. Pure display of perfection being the enemy of good here.
You want people to embrace privacy but keep whiplashing people around when the org/anyone in leadership says something wrong. Screw Signal, they're not perfect. Screw Matrix/Element, some developer said something one day so it's all bad. I'm surprised anyone here uses any privacy software or a major open source software like Linux or Krita or Blender at the risk that someone in the background may be wrong in someway which I am 100% certain they exist in important positions. Same with Lemmy
Go back to the 60s and you all would be shitting on Fred Hampton for accepting the impure and the color coalition for everyone that had ever said something wrong. Al Franken definitely would not make it with y'all. Y'all can't build up leftist communities because y'all are bitter assholes that can't move on and spend so much time purity testing. Y'all are probably mediocre too so can't make a difference in privacy and data ownership activism anyways so should be lining up to support not just Tuta, someone hasn't screwed up publicly yet, and Proton
Reminds me of Aung San Suu Kyi. She was under the gun of the military ruling class that permitted limited democratic government and because she didn't make speech as if she lived in the US, a bunch of Americans turned on her and celebrated when the military dictatorship came back to rule and put her in prison the moment it seemed like the civilian government would actually assert more power
anachrohack 23 points a year ago path: 0 16910068 16926799, hotness: undefined, score: 23, children: 12
commander 6 points a year ago
That's just ad hominem to say people are fanboying the CEO. I never heard the name of the CEO until people started complaining about him. Then I read the statements he put out and that people are hysterical over and reading into as if he's some Trump fanboy. The guys not even an American. He doesn't live in the US. He just runs a service as an alternative to the big tech companies. Was he even in the US for anything but his university years and he's 40?
Americans read more into him than his record and statements say. Not everyone's politics revolve around Americans. I'm waiting for American leftist to turn on Shawn Fain too for supporting Trump auto tariffs and be anti auto workers union because too many in the union are Trump supporters and even someone in opposition like Shawn Fain is supporting a Trump policy. That's even more direct and influential than a guy in Europe that runs a niche privacy centric internet service company
Problematic, barely. It's a handful of statements months ago compared to his life of work. Magnifying glass to your whole life and people would likely find something problematic. If this guy is representative of what a problematic person is, the world would be pretty solid. Waste of energy to be so anti this guy and Proton when it's a service more conducive to privacy rights than anything I or probably any of us have done. Problematic has become such an empty insult with how easily it's thrown around with such passion. Waste of passion
Vinstaal0 3 points a year ago
Yeah a lot of people fan over celeberties politicians or CEO’s, but at the same time a lot of people also hate those same people for various reasons. And people believe in bad against bad and not even the law anymore and don’t believe in second changes or forgiveness.
We call that, the internet.
StonerCowboy 0 points a year ago
Louder for the idiots who can't seem to listen. Preach!
crypt0cler1c -12 points a year ago
This is literally just insane rambling. You need serious media literacy.
anachrohack 13 points a year ago path: 0 16910068 16926799 16927015 16927108, hotness: undefined, score: 13, children: 5
suicidaleggroll 88 points a year ago
If they can charge 30% less without Apple's fees, then why are their prices the same whether you buy on their iOS app or direct on their website? Why have they been overcharging users who don't buy through the iOS app by 30% all this time?
Scipitie 110 points a year ago
Old knowledge disclaimer, but if they didn't change it then:
Because Apple literally tells people that they're not allowed to charge less somewhere else - at least that was the case several years ago...
patrick 26 points a year ago
Some things do charge different amounts though. YouTube Premium for example is more expensive if you subscribe in iOS but maybe that’s just because it’s Google.
They also could have just not let anyone subscribe through the iOS app. Lots of things do that.
DeathsEmbrace 2 points a year ago path: 0 16891243 16891437 16892219 16894309 16905788, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
Ulrich 15 points a year ago
This is the same on most platforms. You'll rarely find a product for different prices in different places because if they're listed on Amazon, Steam, Apple, Google, etc. they're not allowed to.
Buelldozer 18 points a year ago
That isn't exactly true with Steam. Valve does allow a dev to offer a discount at a different store as long as that same discount comes to Steam in a reasonable amount of time.
Straight from the docs:"It's OK to run a discount for Steam Keys on different stores at different times as long as you plan to give a comparable offer to Steam customers within a reasonable amount of time."
maxwellfire 9 points a year ago
That's probably only for selling steam keys on another store. You might be able to sell non steam versions for any price you want
chiliedogg 19 points a year ago
Because Apple prohibited that.
MangoPenguin 16 points a year ago
Likely they were not allowed to by the terms they agreed to with apple.
compostgoblin 71 points a year ago
Cool! Still not gonna put all my eggs in the fascist-sympathetic basket
ABetterTomorrow 65 points a year ago
“Up to”…… here’s 5% off
throwawayacc0430 49 points a year ago path: 0 16900736, hotness: undefined, score: 49, children: 6
prole 14 points a year ago
Dude thinks he knows everything because he has a PhD in Physics, literally out of touch with the politics that anyone doing 5 minutes of web searching can understand.
This is such a common thing. STEM education needs to be more well rounded.
Saleh 3 points a year ago
Why? Idiots thinking they know more than they do won't be stopped by this. Also if we wanted to round humanities and liberal arts by making it mandatory to pass analysis, linear algebra, organic chemistry and classical physics would just lead to much more people not graduating anything.
School is for a general education. Academia is for specialization.
prole 4 points a year ago
I can only speak for myself... But I had 2+ years at university before declaring a (STEM) major, allowing me to take courses in political science, history, etc.
So, as someone with a STEM degree, in a field of specialists who have zero understanding of the real world outside of their field, the difference is instantly recognizable.
The idea that a more well rounded education can ever be a bad thing is just straight up ignorant and it comes off as some sort of insecurity on your part.
Saleh 3 points a year ago
Nobody is kept from taking additional education if they want to, like you did. But the general education should be from school and school education needs to define the standard of what everyone should know or should at least have known at some point so he or she can refresh upon it.
If you make it mandatory to make academic education contain every subject like school did, you will end up with programs taking 20 years instead of 5 years to graduate. If you want to discriminate against certain subjects you end up in the same trap of defining certain subjects as relevant and others as irrelevant, like the criticized "STEM-lords"
chamgireum 13 points a year ago
no no, you see Trump is totally anti-big tech. once he bleeds them dry from all the bribes they'll be gone! /s
Vinstaal0 4 points a year ago
What does politics even have to do with a ruling like this? Isn't the law separated from the government in the US? Or is the US just a corrupt country that allow people to influence the judges ruling to impact the lawsuit in a certain outcome ... O wait ...
skisnow 21 points a year ago
Yeah, having only just switched from GMail to Proton last week my heart sank when I saw “Proton are MAGA”.
Then I spent three minutes reading up on it and it’s like, the CEO said one thing about policy on regulation of big tech that was critical of the Democrats for not doing enough, and the internet has decided that means he’s MAGA.
anachrohack 15 points a year ago path: 0 16910401 16922900 16926871, hotness: undefined, score: 15, children: 3
sudneo -2 points a year ago
Republicans tech policy is motivated entirely by the fact that their racist and conspiratorial views were getting them banned on social media sites from 2015 - 2024
And i should care because...? Why should I care why republicans wanted to break up tech monopolies, if breaking monopolies is anyway something that I consider a positive change?
Breaking monopolies give people more choice. More choice (free) leads to hopefully people choosing more privacy conscious tools. More privacy means less data that can be handed over to doge, less data that ICE has to target minorities, etc.
then you either whole-heartedly agree that a group of criminals and wannabe dictators should be able to destroy any business that publishes speech against them, or you are extremely gullible.
Those are not the only 2 options. I am instead very happy that they will do the right thing for the wrong reason, and outside those monopolies more people will choose services that republicans have no power over. Moreover, your whole argument assumes someone is in US. I am sympathetic to the people in US, but tech monopolies are a global problem.
anachrohack 3 points a year ago path: 0 16910401 16922900 16926871 16928138 16928492, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 1
Nobilmantis 6 points a year ago
Absolutely agreed. I think when you have such role in a company you should avoid making political statements at all, because no matter what you say you will end up upsetting some people. In this case, "try-hard" democrats.
dancingdots -6 points a year ago
It was definitely Trump.
elbarto777 -2 points a year ago path: 0 16910401 16916700 16916999 16925954, hotness: undefined, score: -2, children: 1
AbouBenAdhem 35 points a year ago
No doubt Proton’s CEO will use this to justify his “Trump is better for regulating big tech” claim, while ignoring that the judge is an Obama appointee.
dutchkimble 20 points a year ago
But I already use proton and purchased outside the Apple Store (on the proton website) and use it on my iPhone? What changed?
homesweethomeMrL 19 points a year ago
This the trump-licker? Yeah, bye Proton.
Buh bye now
toastmeister 8 points a year ago
Thundermail is coming soon. By Mozilla.
fubarx 19 points a year ago
It's not exactly 30%. For sales below $1M, it's 15%: https://developer.apple.com/...
In Europe, where this was established last year, they started charging a Core Technology Fee to cover the cost of hosting and data transfer: https://developer.apple.com/...
And if you switch payment providers, you have to pay at least 2.5% plus transaction and any intermediary fees.
It's nice that Proton is offering a discount, but for everyone else there may be additional ongoing costs.
brbposting 7 points a year ago
15% if you know about it, if you apply, if you get accepted
Good watch on this stuff, the recent court decision overall
Dude’s so vindicated. Apple lover who HATES their treatment of developers cases like this.
FlashMobOfOne 10 points a year ago
I got a Proton two-year subscription that averages out to two dollars and change per month.
I already feel like I got an incredible deal.
Vinstaal0 12 points a year ago
Agreeing with a statement from a politician doesn't mean you support that politician, that's how compromises can even start.
But Any Yen isn't in politics, let alone US politics, he is just an idiot.
This articles goes a bit more into it, but it is also an opinion. Don't use Proton if you don't want to idc: https://medium.com/...
anachrohack 2 points a year ago path: 0 16899140 16905230 16905477, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
gusgalarnyk 2 points a year ago
I'm looking at mailbox.org when mine ends.
lookupgeorgism 6 points a year ago
Just use KSuite instead
cupcakezealot 3 points a year ago
tuta and mullvad
SaharaMaleikuhm 1 point a year ago
Based, as they say.
cupcakezealot 2 points a year ago
tuta is mail and calendar only
StonerCowboy 5 points a year ago
They just lowering the prices cause of his backlash for supporting Trump.
Fuck Proton. Snitching ass bitches.
Arcane2077 3 points a year ago path: 0 16930022 16935477, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 3
StonerCowboy -1 points a year ago
Another Russian bot dont you have Twitter to go spew your dumb shit? Fk off.
Arcane2077 1 point a year ago path: 0 16930022 16935477 16939178 16947729, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
Arcane2077 1 point a year ago
Your gullibility makes you easy to control. Proton never supported Trump, and not every fact is spread by russian bots
StonerCowboy -1 points a year ago
"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."
That's you and all the trumpets.
vatlark 2 points a year ago
They lowered the price of Pass. https://proton.me/blog/proton-pass-price-change
CaptainBasculin -3 points a year ago
based move
Vinstaal0 36 points a year ago
Proton itself never directly commited on anything from Trump in a positive way.
Their current CEO Andy Yen posted this Tweet. Yes he is an idiot and even doubled down on it with the Proton account Now I am not from a country with a 2 party system, but last time I checked agreeing with one statement from somebody doesn't mean you support them. Heck finding common ground is often a way to find compromises.
Do what you want and don't support them if you don't want them, but don't act like the company Proton is a Trump supporter. Heck there are a lot of articles on the Proton site which are pro privacy and pro consumer.
booly 38 points a year ago
Andy Yen went out of his way to criticize Democrats on antitrust, which is how you can tell it's actually a pro-Trump position unsupported by the actual facts.
I like Gail Slater. She's possibly the best choice among people who Trump likes, to head DOJ's Antitrust Division. She has bipartisan bona fides.
But to say that Democrats, after 4 years of Lina Khan leading the FTC, and a bunch of the reforms that the Biden FTC and DOJ made to merger standards and their willingness to sue/seek big penalties for antitrust violations, aren't more serious than Republicans about reining in big tech consolidation and about stronger enforcement of antitrust principles, completely flips around the history and is a bad faith argument.
Andy Yen could've praised Gail Slater, and that would be that. Instead, he took a post by Trump that didn't even mention Democrats, and made it about how the Democrats are bad on taking on big tech. That's the problem everyone had with it.
Vinstaal0 11 points a year ago
Well yeah he did support a Trump statement and went out of his way to do it. Later stupidly doubled down on it by using the official response.
But, and this might be because I am not American and live in a country where politics aren't so black and white, but I fail to see how that means you are a MAGA nut/Trump supporter or what not. Especially not because he hasn't taken action (will be hard to do anyway since he is not American).
And there is a strong governance structure with Andy Yen only having 33% power on final says since he is 1 of 3 people in the Proton Foundation which is the shareholder of the Proton company.
anachrohack 1 point a year ago path: 0 16905244 16905592 16905690 16908549 16927026, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 2
anachrohack 2 points a year ago path: 0 16905244 16905592 16905690 16916256 16927013, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 1
sudneo 3 points a year ago
Andy praised Gail Slater publicly, and they even worked together.
jsomae 26 points a year ago
Their CEO approved of an appointment Trump made, and criticized Dem on the issue -- doesn't make him a Trump supporter. If we can't tell the Dems off when we think the GOP does better, how can we proceed?
anachrohack 2 points a year ago path: 0 16905244 16910339 16926984, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 1
medgremlin 1 point a year ago
Yeah, my 2 year plan is up in June. I haven't decided what I'm switching to. I've heard good things about Mullvad's privacy policies and politics, but I've also seen reviews that a bunch of sites and services have them blocked.
I'm open to suggestions at this point.
uawarebrah 9 points a year ago
Mullvad is the gold standard
medgremlin 4 points a year ago
That's what I've been seeing. I don't use Netflix anyways and I mostly just have a VPN for when I'm on a university or hospital campus and I'd like to keep my internet usage private. (Or when sailing the high seas for books.)
Vinstaal0 5 points a year ago
This article goes into it some more, please pick your own opinion: https://medium.com/...
unicorn710 8 points a year ago
This article keeps getting posted but it really just shows the author doesn't understand the issue that was presented. It goes as far as brushing of the criticism almost immediately. Truth is Proton decided they would publicly praise a running fascist leader for goodboy points
Vinstaal0 15 points a year ago
Proton didn't decide anything, Andy Yen posted ONE tweet and then doubled down on it with the Proton Reddit account which was deleted.
I know the US is really into this "us vs them" or Republicans against the Democrats or whatever you want to and that is fair, that's how US policies sadly work which is also one of the reasons why the country is basically corrupt. For most people agreeing with one statement a politician made doesn't mean anything. I can agree with some things Geert Wilders said, but that doesn't mean Ill vote for him.
There are other articles about the whole situation, but I believe that the Tweet says more than the bullshit some people have been shouting on every post regarding Proton. Share the Tweet yes, but don't share the bullshit.
pool_spray_098 7 points a year ago
Thanks for sharing this!
It really does appear that the "Proton is MAGA" thing is just quote taken out of context nonsense.
Vinstaal0 11 points a year ago
Yeah no problem, everybody is allowed to make their own decisions, but I feel like everybody should at least see the actual Tweet.
Edit: apparantly people don’t want the truth to be shared? Share the dang Tweet people.
doodledup -2 points a year ago
I'd use their VPN even if Hitler owns it. It's private, secure and they stand to their values with respect to that. Why would I care about political views? Politics don't change the service on a technical level. Literally don't give a shit.
elrecoal19_1 11 points a year ago path: 0 16905244 16910480 16911370, hotness: undefined, score: 11, children: 10
anachrohack 3 points a year ago path: 0 16905244 16910480 16911370 16921497 16927045, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 7
thanks for using Leebra!
go to feed...
I bet most companies will just take that extra 30% as profit rather than giving it back to their users like proton has.
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