I was an apologist for Proton during the whole Andy Yen commentary mess, but this is a really sus choice for Proton to be making.

All that matters under capitalism is growth. I wonder if the thinking here is that Proton has already captured all the geek/privacy enthusiast crowd that it’s going to, and Andy Yen’s social fuck-up basically killed any future expansion in that space, so this is part of a pivot to new markets and abandonment of areas they know they aren’t going to win back.

If so, I’d expect to see Proton making expanded ad buys targeting preppers, libertarians, sov-cit types and other “I’m being watched!!” kooks.