I love Proton but the idea of subscribing and committing to renew annually is a turn off. There's probably be a huge market behind the psychology of this.

They should offer a lifetime option for the core service and monetize the add-ons and new features.

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nickserv 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

That's exactly the reason why so many people prefer giving up their data, their privacy, their freedom.

Personally I'm happy to pay proton a few bucks a month to not have to give up those things.

I'm not criticizing those that do, just that given my financial situation the trade off is simply not worth it.

	▲	coro_1 4 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Hushmail was great for me, until I couldn't reclaim my inbox after the subscription expired (but there's no free option). Other services deprecate or get weird. Hopefully Proton keeps going in the good direction.
	▲	UnhappyMeaning 3 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Yea I’m in a position where I can’t splurge on things at the moment and basically I would be simply paying for email filters since Proton’s free tier only lets you create one.

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rpdillon 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Paying for a service that you use on an ongoing basis and that is very important (like email) is probably the best possible choice, since it aligns what you're paying for and what the company is working on. In the model you suggest the core service will atrophy slowly because the money is in the add-ons. This is why I'm happy to pay annually for my Fastmail account.

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kogasa240p a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Agreed, even though I use the free tier. Ideally I'd host my own email server but that's not an option for me right now.