Though I love the service, I canceled my HEY email account. Iām not happy about it, but I am pretty sure itās the right thing to do. The founders have been saying things Iāve been critical of for some time, but it has reached the point where I donāt trust the company with my data.
For weeks now, my wife has been telling me about data that she uses to do her job being deleted from federal databases. This includes economic and health information, such as statistics on energy burden (the cost of utilties vs. household income) and maternal and infant medical facts. Of course, my spouse is not the only one to notice this disturbing trend, but the examples she has provided seem particularly egregious and incomprehensible.
Itās shocking to me to go online and see people from 37Signals, which runs the HEY service, encouraging this type of behavior as a service to the country. If 37Signals is as cavalier about data as those they are praising, I believe itās only natural to question if they are good stewards of your resources.
Iāve started my switch to Proton Mail, which is an appealing alternative, given their focus on encryption and security. Iāve never been one to go overboard on privacy protections, given that Iām kind of a nobody. However, with a government this adversarial towards many of its citizens (not to mention its own employees), known and unknown, I think itās a good idea to start taking extra precautions.
My initial experience with Proton hasnāt been altogether bad (though there are some serious bugs with their MacOS client ā which I will be soon reporting). However, Proton doesnāt have the same level of consideration and willingness to defy conventions as HEY, which makes the user experience less delightful. If I could in good conscience stick with a 37Signals product, I would, but itās time to move on.
