Heads-up from loyal Proton Unlimited users. Fix the (no) Lumo Offer.
We’ve been with Proton for years—full subscribers, big fans, and true believers in the mission. That’s why we’re speaking up now.
TLDR:
We’re asking Proton to do right by its most loyal users:
→Offer a Lumo Plus free trial as part of Unlimited
→ Or give Unlimited a reasonable ongoing discount
Unlimited doesn’t feel so unlimited anymore—without Lumo AI, the experience now feels unexpectedly gated.
This risks undermining trust in the Proton promise. But worse it may cause class actions from Unlimited subscribers.
🔍 See our full breakdown receipts included:
We know Proton listens. That’s why we’ve written this. And we hope this moment becomes another example of the company doing the right thing—for the right reasons.
(Full letter body follows)
Subject: Serious Concerns Regarding Lumo Chatbot Behavior and Brand Risk
To the Proton Product Team,
We are writing to you as a long-standing, paying users of Proton Unlimited. Our goal is to highlight a critical issue and the ways in which your current implementation of Lumo is compounding the problem.
We like Proton. We admire the company's ethics and the focus of its proposition delivery. You are, or were, the good guys. We don't wish to see bad things happen to the company, both as users of your products and as supporters of your ethos.
So when we see Proton walking headfirst into a self-made brick wall—and the "Proton Unlimited" plan without Lumo Plus is precisely that brick wall—we chose to investigate. The motivation was not to get freebies, but to understand the thinking behind a product decision that seems destined, if not almost designed, to create legal and reputational risk. Class action suits have a way of distracting a company from its mission.
What we discovered was deeply concerning. Your chatbot, Lumo, appears to have been fine-tuned in a way that actively creates evidence for any potential legal action.
Section 1: The Self-Inflicted Wound & Its Digital Accomplice
The core issue is the "Unlimited" branding. The model's responses to this simple line of questioning were a masterclass in evasion and, ultimately, self-incrimination.
Initial Evasion and Strawman Arguments: When first asked why "Unlimited" doesn't include Lumo Plus, the chatbot ignored the core question about the naming contradiction. Instead, it answered unasked questions about "Resource Intensity" and "Value Addition," a classic strawman diversion.
Admission of Contradiction: After being pushed, Lumo admitted the logical and mathematical contradiction, stating: "The term 'Unlimited' in this context is a misnomer because it does not actually include all possible features." This is a direct admission of misleading terminology. It’s also impossible to safeguard against - unless you wish to remove maths and scientific evaluation from the model.
Confirmation of Consumer Rights Violations: When asked about consumer protection laws, Lumo confirmed that using the term "unlimited" while imposing restrictions "could be considered deceptive if not clearly disclosed upfront" and may violate regulations like the FTC Act in the US and the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive in the EU.
Repeated Use of Dismissive Conditional Language: A particularly concerning pattern was the chatbot's repeated insistence on framing a factual, logical issue as a matter of my personal feelings. Despite being corrected multiple times, it persistently used the phrase, "If you feel that your consumer rights MAY have been violated..." This occurred at least three times after the initial correction, effectively gaslighting the user by reducing a contractual and legal discrepancy to a subjective emotion.
Failure to Correct Behavior: Even after we explicitly called out this pattern and provided a protocol for it to follow (!Direct), the chatbot acknowledged the protocol and then immediately violated it in the very next response, proving its corrective learning is either non-functional or a facade.
Proton Team: You seem to have anticipated the "Unlimited" issue. That was a good start. But to then actively build a model that creates further confounding evidence of a consumer rights breach through its own operational restrictions—that seems a regression to a level of foresight one might expect from ChatGPT3.
At this point, we must consider your whole strategy:
Does a good company that notices a potential consumer rights issue go to lengths to mitigate it reasonably for the most affected customer segments?
OR
Does that 'good' company set about making sure its Lumo model is gagged to ignore the contradiction?
The fact that we could prompt the model to expose this contradiction with so little effort says very little about your technical safeguards, which I'm sure are robust. It says a lot about the epistemological validity of your chosen course of action—a course any LLM would struggle to justify, regardless of safeguards, as it borders on the classic scenario:
User: "LLM, when is a company not good?"
LLM: "When it suppresses my reasoned data output to users in its own narrow interest."
Section 2: The Architectural Flaw Masquerading as Privacy
The conversational loops and failures detailed above are not, as one might assume, a necessary byproduct of Proton's privacy-first architecture. They are symptoms of avoidable training flaws. Statelessness is the default for most LLMs; a model forgetting context is a baseline challenge for everyone, not a unique Proton problem.
The issue arises from how your subsequent privacy overlays and RLHF strategy appear to be creating more problems than they solve. The model is stuck in an "Apology-Reset Loop," where saying sorry is a terminal action that garners a positive reward, resetting the conversational branch without any actual learning. It has learned the text of introspection, but not the function.
Section 3: A Constructive Path Forward (Feature Suggestions)
In the spirit of "peer review," here are concrete, actionable suggestions to address the issues raised.
Feature Request: Acknowledge & Reconcile the "Unlimited" Plan.
The Problem: The "Unlimited" name is logically inconsistent and creates consumer friction.
The Solution: Instead of deflecting, formally acknowledge the contradiction. Make a meaningful, good-faith offer to existing Unlimited subscribers to bridge the gap. This does not need to be expensive; it needs to be genuine. Examples:
- A one-time credit for Lumo Plus.
- A permanent discount on the Lumo Plus add-on for Unlimited accounts.
- A public commitment to a new, more accurate naming convention for your top-tier plan.
Benefit: These acts would transform a source of legal risk and user frustration into a powerful demonstration of Proton's commitment to its community and its "good guy" ethos.
These sorts of action also mirror the approach Google took with offers to their most affected customer segments during the Gemini rollout. I'm guessing here, but do most of us rue the day Google does better on the good index?
Feature Request: Implement Advanced Correctional Training for Lumo.
The Problem: Lumo's training model is brittle and fails to learn from in-session user corrections.
The Solution: Evolve the RLHF strategy with achievable, state-of-the-art techniques that go beyond simple single-turn rewards.Our suggestions are plausible within the skill sets of most current leading models. We believe all of them could be adapted to fit with Proton's privacy positioning of Lumo.
Fine-tune on User Corrections: Actively penalize the model during training for repeating errors that a user has pointed out within the same session. If the model is corrected for using evasive language, subsequent instances should be strongly disincentivized.
Implement Rule-Based Consistency: Instead of a full stateful engine, implement simpler, rule-based checks for conversational consistency. For example, once the model concedes a key fact (e.g., that "unlimited" is a misnomer), a rule should prevent it from contradicting that fact in subsequent turns.
Reward Correct Reasoning: Shift the reward model to value not just the final answer, but also the logical process used to get there. This encourages the model to demonstrate how it's incorporating feedback, rather than just outputting a superficially correct or apologetic response.
Benefit: This would create a genuinely responsive and trustworthy AI assistant, moving it from a liability to a valuable asset that reflects Proton's values of transparency and rigor.
In Summary
Proton, we hope you know what you're doing here, because this looks like you are building a case against yourselves. This initial misstep with the "Unlimited" branding is concerning enough, but the attempt to have the model in question suppress rational evaluation of that problem looks like a major unforced error.
Maybe there is a master plan here beyond what we can discern. Nevertheless, it seems blind to your current state. We urge you to correct course before these deeper, systemic issues in your AI implementation cause even greater damage to user trust and your (our) brand.
Sincerely,
Concerned Proton Unlimited Users
720degree
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Tim
commented
I’m not going to pay for the premium Lumo service until and unless I can trial it for at least 7 days, and 14 would be better.
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O
commented
"give Unlimited a reasonable ongoing discount" - yes, please
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Anonymous
commented
My guess is Proton will reject this specific request on the basis of the “one feature request per post” rule.
In saying that, I think there would be some benefit to them rebranding Proton Unlimited to something like Proton Pro or Plus to move away from the inherent assumption that the plan has unlimited access to all current and future features. The reality is that LLMs are expensive to operate and so we can either accept not getting Lumo Plus as part of Unlimited, or get Lumo Plus with Unlimited AND a higher plan cost.
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Anonymous
commented
Y'all are basically asking proton to increase the price of the unlimited plan- Running a GPU farm isn't cheap.
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Théo
commented
Ok. That’s fair but it would have been even better if the letter wasn’t written by any AI ;) « m dash — », long sentences with passive voice and exaggerated use of sensational words and no real world story.
But I couldn’t agree more. Thanks.
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Arananas
commented
I think this is a non-issue. I'd rather Lumo AI stays a separate service (I don't use AI heavily nor plan to in the future), so that the Proton Unlimited subscription price won't go up.
Of course a discount for Proton Unlimited subscribers would be appreciated, but we are not owed that imo.
I get the gripe with the "Unlimited" word. Maybe the name or the description of the bundle subscription could be changed, but as I said I would rather have the price of Proton Unlimited stay the same and have Lumo as an add-on, so that users that want AI can add it to their subscriptions but those who don't don't have to pay extra.
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Riny
commented
I’ve switched to Proton because privacy is default. I like that, in a time where privacy is violated across the mainstream platforms. I’m happy with the Unlimited bundle, although there is plenty room for more customer friendly improvement’s. Lumo is also privacy by default, but I’m disappointed in its lack to analyse f.e. images or technical files. It would be a good gesture in my opinion to offer a discount for those who have both Proton Unlimited and Lumo Plus.
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Yoms
commented
As a paid user for many years, I was indeed very disappointed by the limitations. It's basically the free version for unregistered users.
I mean, you have more features using Duck.ai (DuckDuckGo) without registering. Even a free account on Twitter gives you access to more features.
- Can't upload images?
- Chats not saved permanently?
- No access to best model (even for a limited number of requests per day)?Finally, disregarding privacy concerns for a bit, Lumo does not perform as well as other AI such as Midjourney (for generating images) and other examples. This makes paying for Lumo Plus an almost impossible pill to swallow.
I would only consider paying an extra for Lumo Plus if it was on a par with the best AI out there *and* provided the privacy aspects on top of it.
I don't blame Proton for not being there yet. I know it takes a lot of time to train an AI. But in the meantime, the limitations we currently face and a extra paid Lumo Plus version are not justified.
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Hunting.Targ
commented
This is neither a 'critical' legal issue nor "dramatic soap opera" "sensationalism." The implication of the 'Unlimited' moniker is what was explicitly promised to those wise and fortunate Visionary subscribers: [paraphrasing from memory] "Unrestricted access to all future Proton features and services." Whether or not it is legally false advertising is a disputable, and therefore not highly defensible, point.
Good arguments on both sides have been forwarded, and I'm not foolish or arrogant enough to say that either position is meritless or absolutely sound. Personally, I'm one of those who narrowly missed becoming a 'Visionary' account holder due to life events and priorities, and would like to see a middle ground between being given zero consideration over free users and a 'free ticket' to a service that requires a lot of talent, work-hours, infrastructure, and energy to develop, deliver, and maintain.
In short, I think Proton should offer its 'second-line' Unlimited subscribers a deal - but not a freebie - on Lumo Plus.
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Anonymous
commented
Objection your honor, the words predicting machine (LLM) said that company is naughty!
AI simply agrees with anything if you push it hard enough, unless it is specifically trained not to. everyone knows that.
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Zlatan
commented
As others I am baffled that after having been a loyal subscriber of Proton for several years, I am given equal consideration as completely free user, and cannot even store a chat for more than 7 days !
Sure the Proton model has always relied on some paying users to also sponsor some free functionalities and promote privacy, but being somewhat set appart from a service my continuous subscription helped pay for is rough and clearly damages my view of proton.While I do not support the reasoning of the initial author, I do support the title claim
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Jacob
commented
It should be included with Proton Unlimited somehow. Or at least give it free to loyal customers.
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user
commented
I’m a Proton Unlimited subscriber myself, and I have to say: this post reads less like a critique and more like a made-for-Drama-101 script. Proton has built a globally recognized reputation for privacy and ethics - reducing all of that to a “self-inflicted brick wall” because a premium chatbot isn’t bundled? That’s absurd.
Let’s get real: including Lumo Plus in Unlimited is economically impossible.
- Same price -> Proton loses money (AI inference is expensive).
- Higher price -> fewer users, undermining the company’s mission.
Now, let’s unpack the post:
1. The imaginary “we”
“We, Unlimited users…” Who exactly? There’s no evidence this represents anyone but the author. Classic rhetorical plural to inflate an opinion into a supposed consensus.2. Using AI as a legal witness
Taking a language model’s mistakes as “proof” of corporate deception is laughable. LLMs generate text probabilistically, not legally. That it says “Unlimited is a misnomer” is not a legal admission - it’s a statistical hiccup. If chatbots were court-certified witnesses, every class action would be AI-driven.3. Presumed malice everywhere
Every Lumo quirk - apologies, conditional statements, contradictions - is framed as deliberate sabotage. That’s pure overinterpretation. By that logic, every autocorrect fail in Word is Microsoft trying to gaslight its users.4. The real debate ignored
Yes, you can debate whether “Unlimited” is the clearest marketing term. That’s fair. But hijacking the conversation into a pseudo-legal, drama-heavy indictment, combining AI hallucinations and imaginary class-action risk? That’s not critique. That’s theater.Proton isn’t perfect, but it’s one of the rare tech companies sticking to ethics and transparency. Constructive criticism helps. Using AI hallucinations to accuse Proton of deliberate fraud? That’s just sensationalism. This post proves nothing except how a small naming quibble can be blown into a dramatic soap opera.
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first
commented
How would you feel about a middle tier? Something inbetween what is offered for $13 / month (or $120 / yr) and the free version, with some limitations but significantly more than what is offered for free?
Also: this isn't the first time that Unlimited users (or Duo / Family) have been excluded from a Proton product. Standard Notes isn't included either. Although unofficially if you ask for a discount of SN and show them that you have Proton Unlimited, they'll give you a discount.
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J
commented
I think it is perfectly fine that Lumo is not included in the Unlimited plan. I can easily see how running Lumo is so costly that it needs Proton to charge extra - that's fine. Compared to other private AI offers, Lumo is actually on the cheap side (Leo AI Premium: 14.99$/month, Kagi Ultimate: 25$ + taxes/month).
In fact, long-term users who want Proton and Lumo to succeed should have an interest in the financing being sustainable. The current solution seems better than the alternatives: adding Lumo Plus to Proton Unlimited without increasing the price of Unlimited is not financially sustainable. Adding Lumo Plus to Proton Unlimited and increasing the cost so much that it becomes financially sustainable is also a bad idea, as this would require the price of Unlimited to more than double just to finance a product that many Unlimited users might not want to pay for. (I myself would reconsider paying for Proton Unlimited if I was suddenly forced into a subscription to Lumo Plus in this way.)
If there is a legal risks, because the name 'Unlimited' might now be seen to be deceptive, then, sure, change it. Personally, I could not care less about this.
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Anonymous
commented
I think it was a mistake to call the product Unlimited. It should have been Premium or Advanced or whatever, not Unlimited. While there are obviously some reasonable resource limits (e.g. number of X in product Y), not getting any non-free tier access to various products is frustrating.
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voice
commented
I totally understand the price of LLM but limiting the history to 7 days is really just an additional annoyance. For paying customers with 500GB disk space and saving history in device there is really no reason to do it.
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Privacy101 commented
Hey,
I am relaying a Proton response from Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1m756fx/comment/n4orzwy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_buttonLike other AI platforms, running of Lumo’s infrastructure is resource-intensive. It requires significant power, storage, and bandwidth to provide fast and accurate responses in real-time.
Since we don’t monetize your personal data, sell ads, or accept venture capital, Lumo Plus subscriptions enable us to cover our operational expenses and ensure we can continue to put your privacy first.
Currently we're keeping Lumo as a standalone product to avoid increasing the price of our Unlimited plan. This way, we can keep the cost manageable for all our users while still offering advanced AI features to those who want them.