Both sw and hw.

SW is usually hard to use, offering no meaningful settings or making them hard to get to with meaningful QoL features simply absent. Search in any kind of mainstream product is an absolutely excellent example.

If someone does need something other than the default workflow or encounters any error then that is too bad for them.

For a lot of hw products there is little to no meaningful choice alongside absent repair options. The best example is probably smartphones which are excessively thin bricks with a charging port, camera bump, sealed in battery and hard to impossible to change os.

Features decreasing longevity and contributing to waste(plug in for global warming) are simply accepted and even welcomed by end users for bizzare reasons.

For now there are still workarounds depending on how much effort you want to expend with that effort sometimes being truly excessive.

I got a new Verizon account in December 2025, and was surprised to learn they'd give me a free phone. I chose a Pixel 10 (128GB, Obsidian).

When I opened the Verizon account, the Verizon employee touched this Pixel 10 just enough to make sure the eSIM was configured, but we never even set up the OS. I moved the eSIM to my phone, so this Pixel 10 has never been used, never even finished the initial boot process.

I think Verizon carrier-locks their phones for 60 days. I got the phone on 12/17/25 so it should be out of carrier lock now.

This Pixel 10 is boot-loader locked and I use GrapheneOS, so it's of no use to me. I tried to sell it on eBay, but they wanted me to upload photos of my ID or some such nonsense, which I won't do. I tried to sell it on Swappa, but they refused because the phone is "financed"*.

This phone is technically in new condition except the plastic seal on the box has been broken.

If you'd like to buy an unused Pixel 10 for $500 + shipping, please send me a private message and we'll work out the details.

Photos can be seen here (link available until 4/30/26): https://immich.thewooskeys.com/s/pixel10

Let me know if you have any questions about the phone.

Offers will be considered.

*The "free phone" deal with Verizon is that they charge me the cost of the phone ($800) prorated monthly over 2 years, and each month they also credit me that same amount so the total charge each month is $0.00. If ever I cancel my plan with them, they will charge me the balance.

Beyond the Motorola Razr flip phones, I can't seem to find many small phone options. Are they out there anywhere?

***correction! I meant to say the iPhone 12 mini! There is an important distinction there and sorry to all who answered before this correction.

So I kind of want to get out of the Gmail ecosystem, and have been eyeing Proton as a good replacement, but I can't help but to think that nearly all of Proton's selling points and marketing points are all smoke and mirrors.

And I don't know, maybe I'm looking at this entirely the wrong way, I am just really struggling to see the appeal of Proton.

First, I'll start with my "threat model".

In general I want to be more anonymous online and slip under the radar better.

I'm not planning on doing anything clandestine, but with the direction the US is going, I'd rather not be an easy target if I want to be active in activism spaces if you catch my drift.

And I'm also interested in staying off of databrokers radars, or obfuscate myself to prevent coherent tracking.

With that being said, it seems that even with a proton email if someone wanted to find my identity they could, data brokers or governments alike, even if I pay for my subscription with cash.

And not that I'm really worried about that, but to me that negates like the entirety of Proton's marketing gimmick.

And I'm failing to see what functional benefit Proton has when it comes to privacy outside of just being "aesthetically private".

Here are some of my concerns, please feel free to correct me if I'm completely offbase with any of the logic below, but this is just my initial thoughts, and I'd love to hear some feedback and/or be corrected or provided more context.

1. Why does the encryption of the message body matter if the envelope and address are is still exposed? If a government or data broker can get the sender/receiver info, timestamps, and my IP, they have a map of my life. Isn't the "private content" just a distraction from the real leak? Like other than not having my emails used to train AI or data being sold to data brokers, I can't find a functional improvement or benefit to my daily life to use Proton outside of thinking "Yeah, fuck The Man" every time I log in. Like I am more worried about governments and data brokers knowing who I'm sending/receiving things from than I am about the content of those messages being exposed since I'm not going to be monologuing evil plans over email, and I really don't care if the databroker tracking me knows that I bought a case of liquid death root beer 4 times in one month since they get that information from Amazon or whatever website anyways.

2. Everyone talks about "Swiss protection," but isn't that just a speed bump? If the U.S. government goes to Switzerland with an MLAT request, Proton has to comply. And even if I've payed with cash, they can still be compelled to log the IP logins and hand over the alias emails and primary mailbox used by that account and the metadata. So if I sign up for something using an alias, they can take that alias and file an MLAT request with Switzerland to get my main email, the metadata for my entire inbox(just not the body content) and the other aliases tied to that account, and then do a search for any services using those emails to find my identity. They could technically use an alias email I've made, send an information request to Switzerland/Proton, get back a list of aliases and email metadata, find that I used an alias to sign up to a pizza delivery service, then subpoena that pizza delivery service for my name, phone number, and address, at that point what's the point? Is the point just to make it harder for them? I'm not planning on doing anything that could get them to want to subpoena my emails ANYWAYS, but what's the point of making it harder for them outside of again, just thinking to myself "haha fuck you" every time I send an email?

3. Even if I use an alias, if the site I use the alias on gets tied to my online data/identity, then my privacy is broken, right? Like lets say I want to sign up for a new site called godotshaders.com, I use a proton alias to sign up. This site then collects that data, my IP, my cookie data, browser user agent string data, and that I'm logged into some account with my other non-proton email, etc, that gets tied to my browsing data they're collecting, and suddenly they've linked that alias email to my advertising profile and other browsing. Rinse & repeat. Now all the aliases are tied to me. I don't see how these emails help with online advertising tracking.

4. I have tons of accounts I use, my bitwarden login count sits at around 850 logins, but I probably only regularly use a small fraction of those. But if I end up changing my email on a lot of those accounts to the proton email, even a proton alias, all that does for data brokers is potentially tie every one of those new alias emails to me. And at that point there is no difference in my data broker information just that I have 850 different alias emails. But my data is still tied to those accounts. So AGAIN, what's the point of this? Do I need to sign up for everything from scratch in order to maybe have privacy?