Proton's CEO Wanted to Fight Dictatorships. Now He's Fighting Big Tech too.
 

There's not much difference between the big tech companies and dictatorships: both are sure they know what's good for the people and are entitled to enforce their views on the people, and most people accept this reality.

I'm not going to subscribe to read the article, but tech companies are not like dictatorships. Especially with email, there are tons of choices any of us can and do use if we don't like one of the big ones. That's obvious from this forum. Choose your own dictatorship!

There are plenty of choices for email, but not everyone can communicate through email.
Last week I needed service from the local Grohe representative here for a product under warranty. They require a "video of the problem", otherwise they do not continue to process my request. The only way to send them a video is WhatsApp (a product of Meta, formerly Facebook). Formally they also accept email, but after I sent them the video as an email attachment they claimed they cannot see it and I must send it through WhatsApp. So no way to avoid this "big one" except giving up on having the product fixed under warranty.
There are also many small organizations that don't offer any method of contact other than Facebook. So of course I'm free not to contact them, but it's certainly not the case that I can avoid using the private networks owned by the"big ones" without making lots of compromises on what I can be involved in.

Here in the USA it is very unusual if a company doesn't have multiple means of being contacted, which usually include email and old-fashioned phone calls. Both email and phone have lots of different services that can be used. I personally do not do business with any companies for anything important that do not offer direct contact with customer support via email and phone. Email and phone still remain the most universal communication systems, along with snail mail, though that has become much less important in recent years.

Doesn't consumer law offer any protection in your country?

What happens if you email the parent company, rather than the local rep?

Interesting, thanks. I love that he's supporting anti-trust.

Of course we have. And the company does have telephone and email and probably fax that I can find somehow (phone directory?) but nowhere to find in their website (which is redirected from the international company's website). Everyone here now works with having you first enter all your details in their website, including agreeing to being served ads because you cannot get the button to "submit" without ticking the box, and then they phone you when it's convenient for them. Eventually after I sent them a video by email that they could not view my wife sent them a video by Whatapp and a technician came and and confirmed that something is broken and should be fixed, but didn't fix it because he didn't have the parts (which they could certainly figure out from the video are needed to fix the problem) and now I have to wait until he orders the part and gets it... I can make a complaint but it wouldn't help me a bit because everyone here is sure that Whatsapp is the main way to communicate, and that it's reasonable that a company would require a video before it sends a technician.