2023 Reddit Refugee

On Decentralization:

“We no longer have choice. We no longer have voice. And what is left when you have no choice and no voice? Exit.” - Andreas Antonopoulos

  • 40 Posts
  • 717 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 15th, 2023

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  • 100% agree with you dude. As customers, we do want to know about sales. But companies need to meet us in the middle. Give us the option to opt out. And in your app, embed a non-annoying advertisement about your sale.

    Show a sales banner that does not obstruct the functional UI or take up signficiant real estate. Have a “Deals” or “Offers” button that is animated - wiggle, shake, whatever! That’s the best compromise for the user experience.

    Steam has pop ups, but you can opt out of that pop up that shows your Recommendation queue in a carousel you can click through to see different games. I think that’s cool! But I have the option to disable it and so I have done so. If I want to see my recommendations, I can look at the main page and simply click left and right through them to discover new games.

    We need Proton to think about the user experience and give us the option to opt out of those things.


  • Right! I think if I was a free user, yeah I’d be annoyed that I got a huge pop up. But I’d accept that - I’m using a service for free and benefiting from it entirely.

    As a paid user if that pop up appears, there better be a tick box right below that ad that gives me the option to tick “Don’t show promotional pop ups again”. And if it is not in the pop up window, I better see a toggle in Settings. If it did exist, I would have been annoyed it popped up but would have been relieved I could disable them in perpetuity. I never would have made this post on Lemmy if that were the case! :)

    But they have devs to pay, managers, customer service reps, SRE, infrasture providers, vendors, marketing, etc. Embed a “Sale” banner in the app that doesn’t annoy or take up significant UX space. I want to see an “Offers” or “Sale” button that wiggles/shakes/animated. Things like that are necessary because they need to make money. I’m okay with that! But oof those pop ups - gosh I hate them.


  • Yep totally. I think that’s the way to go. Granted this is the first time I’m using “Proton” services and also that I’m paying for their VPN. I imagine they send you emails like this to give you a heads up your subscription is expiring.

    What you wrote though is exactly what I want to see. It’s a non-annoyance and expected. I do know they have bills to pay and a lot of employees that won’t work for free. So what I would appreciate from their apps are no pop ups. Give me an embedded banner in the app when you have a sale. Make an “Offers” button animated or wiggle/shake to alert the user there is a cool sale going on. I just don’t want pop ups, especially when they take up 30% of my screen real estate. I would not have been mad at all if there was a tick box that said “Don’t show offers again” in that pop up window. I would have said, “cool, I can turn this stupid thing off” and never would have made this post on Lemmy nor engaged Proton support because I would know they consider the experience of their users.


  • Saving money is always good for me. I’m willing to pay more for an excellent service. When I was younger and money was very tight for me, I went with the cheap crap and dealt with frustrations. I’ll continue to use the VPN service I paid for, and unless it totally blows me away with wonderful features and greater uptime than Mullvad, I most likely will not renew with them. Mullvad worked exceptionally well, but at least a handful of times a week I would get connection errors and would need to switch to a new IP (a minor annoyance).

    Thanks! So this wallpaper is embedded in “Wallpaper Engine” from Steam. I don’t have the original, but the artist for these wallpapers is “ITZAH”. Here’s their Steam community workshop: https://steamcommunity.com/id/1tzah/

    Edit: I snipped a screenshot of what it looks like. This is not saved in a proper wallpaper desktop resolution since I simply just used a snip of my desktop wallpaper. A formative game from my younger years - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.


  • I hear ya. I’m in a bit of a tricky and conflicted position here because I know obviously companies need to advertise. And Proton switched to the non-profit model in June 2024 and established the Proton Foundation (https://proton.me/blog/proton-non-profit-foundation). I was hoping this announcement would help ease back their aggressive advertising.

    They need money, and employees don’t work for free. They have a lot of people to pay. My compromise is if they can limit the ads that turn people off: pop ups and annoyances. If there’s a big sale coming up, I welcome them embedding a banner in their app to say “Hey, check out this offer!”. That’s totally fine with me. If I like a service, I’ll explore it more and pay for it. But once it gets too hostile, I’m immediately turned off and start looking elsewhere.