I agree with you on the principle. In this case I disagree with the premise. Years of actions I think easily out weight that tweet. If that’s the only reason to be suspicious, then I don’t think it’s warranted.

Thanks, I appreciate it.

Sure, it does. Which depending on what their goal is, may be perfectly fine.

They have always been actively almost exclusively on reddit (where they engage) anyway, they will keep doing so I assume.

The problem is that those arguments are not falsifiable. If not one, but two completely reasonable explanation cannot convince you of someone motivations, nothing can. However, I don’t care if Musk did or did not a Nazi salute. His actions speak much louder (in a bad sense) than the aesthetic that he decides to adopt. Proton donation pattern for example would be a strong indicator to measure intentions.

but it was a wildly tone deaf one if so

Maybe. But also maybe people are allowed to have different cultural references, and in a global context (i.e., the internet) we should expect diversity. I - for example - had never heard of this 88 thing, and I would definitely not think about it at all the next time I create a username, and I didn’t think it when I went to a barber shop that has that number in the name. Likewise, I wouldn’t call anybody writing “Merry Xmas” tone deaf for missing the reference to the X MAS of infamous history (and just recently in the news). For some people it’s apparently impossible to see their culture as non-universal (at the cost of sounding stereotypical, folks from US have particularly this problem after decades of cultural hegemony).

for a party that’s steeped in all of the same memetic game playing, you cant ignore the dog whistles

This all happened before Musk/Bannon salute. Just to specify it.

It’s not a problem of complexity, it’s a deliberate choice of not wanting to do that, because it is synthetic content disconnected from the community.

This comment is a perfect example of why I have written https://loudwhisper.me/blog/proton-fediverse-burnout/

The 88 thing is the complete tip of the iceberg for me. I can’t honestly imagine the thought process needed to reach a conclusion that a Taiwanese guy (8 is a lucky number) born in '88 would put that number as a dog-whistle (which is not really part of his own cultural landscape) for Nazis, while dealing with a PR issue.

It’s like looking at a crashed car, tire marks on the ground and suggesting it must have been a sharknado and not a car accident.

(Re)Posting and not engaging with the community is not free publicity, is bad publicity. They don’t have the resources (according to them) do to the latter, and therefore they choose not to do the former.

In case of proton free means “subsidized by paying users”. No big mystery on how they make money.

They specifically said they don’t want to do automated posting, to avoid writing and not interacting with the community. I see no value in them doing this, considering we can get the same content via RSS, blog page or email newsletter. Presence makes sense if it means presence. If it means a bot reposting content, anybody can do it, but the value is very low.

I also use porkbun, their API is not a masterpiece but it works and allows you to get, set and update records. In fact their API is now supported by some of the common ddns scripts out there.

Desec.io is a good option. To be honest using cloudflare just for DNS is completely OK. It’s not a service that allows spying on you or consolidates their monopoly.