Godfry
commented
4 years ago Thanks you for your comment. First of all I thought I would reply to your comments
Reply to your comments:
Some services are able to offer free email because they sell their users private information. Other services discount their services using funds received from global corporations or governments. I have read corporate financial aid proposals and find them to be designed to abuse users privacy. Other services use free code from services like rainloop. They have no construction or maintenance costs so they can offer a cheap or free service.
We are not trying to become the next Gmail, or Yahoo. We aren’t going to use free software from others, and we will never accept Corporate or Government aid. We are offering a niche email service for those who want a custom service, that is not subsidized by a Government or Global Corporation. I have reviewed the company finances and we priced things at the level we need them to at to continue operations. Some people get upset when they learn I’ve declined government aid proposals and corporate investment. I tell them that the proposals were designed with the intent to abuse our user's privacy. Then I direct those people to other services like Protonmail or Tutanota. They are exceptional services, and all email services are soldiers who stand side by side in the war to protect privacy.
When I designed the security features list, I used Lavabit as an example. They offered some security features for the paid accounts that were not available for free accounts.
Changes we'll make due to your comments:
- We’re going to review which security features are available to free accounts. You made good points, we’ll review it again and likely make changes.
- I think we can offer a discounted or free “Prime” account to contributors, charitable organizations and others. For example, you have reported bugs and I value the work you've done to be higher than the price of a paid subscription.
Future Plans
In the future, we plan to add some features and services at no added cost. For example, we plan to add a ‘google drive’ type service, with End the End encryption, for no added cost to all paid accounts. And this service will also be available to free accounts to a lesser degree.
This industry is really difficult because I can't call a billion-dollar investment partner and ask for a few hundred thousand dollars for something. This has to be able to support itself but people expect email to be free (gmail), or they expect it to be offered cheaply like the government-subsidized email services.
I hope I did not come across as combative. The bottom line is you made some good points and we'll be reviewing things again. And I also deeply appreciate your comments and input in Github. Many of our best features have been suggested by people from the community like you. I appreciate your input and comments, sincerely I do.
Kind Regards to you,
notramo
The-Hidden-Hand
The entry level plan is very expensive. No other encrypted mail provider has such high prices. I understand that more storage costs money to you. But there are features that doesn't need more system resources. There should be a basic plan for half € per month which would enable these features. For example, the dead man's timer doesn't need more system resources, so this should be available in the cheap plan. Subject encryption, and delayed delivery also. So if somebody has this cheap plan, it wouldn't cost any money to you but you would get a little income, and the users could afford it. This would be a killer feature too, because many users doesn't need more storage but want to use these features, and other encrypted mail providers doesn't have the "without-storage" cheap subscription. This would make CTemplar the cheapest provider for them. This plan could be also granted to those who contribute with bug reports or translations, because it doesn't costs anything for you but would highly encourage people contributing.