this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2024
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Privacy

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It was fun while it lasted. The recent addition of PGP support was very welcome, and I thought that such support might have been a sign that they were in it for the long-term with the email product, but I thought wrong.

Dear Skiff Community,

We are excited to share that Skiff is joining Notion.

Skiff's mission is to bring freedom to the internet by helping people collaborate and communicate with freedom and privacy. We see a deep alignment with Notion’s vision to build a connected workspace and enable everyone to build tools that reflect their values.

We’re extremely excited to accelerate our mission by joining forces with Notion’s world-class team. We sincerely hope that the Skiff community will join us for this next stage of our journey. We’re pursuing big plans for making all of our online lives freer and more empowered, and these plans will carry forward directly the ambitions we’ve strived for alongside the Skiff community.

As we begin to shift focus to our shared efforts with Notion, we will be closing down Skiff's product suite after a 6-month sunset period We are deeply appreciative of the trust users have extended to us, and we are committed to honoring that trust by ensuring that all data on Skiff is easily exportable. For the next 6 months, Skiff services will continue to operate without disruption, and users can freely duplicate, migrate, or export data. You can now also set up a forwarding address to redirect mail to any other provider.

Our commitment to privacy and security is unchanged. All user data remains end-to-end encrypted, and Skiff products will never monetize your data. Accounts and data on Skiff will not be converted into Notion accounts.

We encourage you to export your data and migrate custom domains within the next 6 months. We’ve prepared this guide to make that process as easy as possible. For any other questions, our support team is readily available via the in-app “Send feedback” option or at [email protected].

The Skiff community has lifted, inspired, and energized us at every step. We are humbled by your support and we apologize for any disappointment or inconvenience this change may cause you. We remain as committed as ever to bringing about the vision for a better internet that brought us together. Thank you for being part of the Skiff family, and we look forward to continuing to serve you with our future efforts.

Sincerely, Skiff Team

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[–] [email protected] 91 points 9 months ago (1 children)

We’re pursuing big plans for making all of our online lives freer and more empowered, and these plans will carry forward directly the ambitions we’ve strived for alongside the Skiff community.

That's some nice corporate speak right there.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago

Fuck this guy and fuck Notion too.

[–] darkmatternoodlecow 71 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ran it through the corpo parseltongue translator.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago

you can use the exact same image for an accurate translation of most corpo bs

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[–] [email protected] 61 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I run an email service, and it seems pretty awful to me to sell your company and not stipulate that the email domain should be migrated to another provider. Forcing your users to migrate away from their addresses is really rude.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

It is some bullshit, to be sure. Basically a middle finger as they waltz out the door.

"Show yourself out."

[–] [email protected] 50 points 9 months ago (1 children)

So glad I didn't switch my email to them but sad that another promising service is gone.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 months ago

Came here looking for this, I just got the email. I do not use their email service as a main email, so I wont be missing a lot. Still disappointing however, but not really surprised.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I was really enjoying using Skiff Pages as an alternative to Google Docs. Glad I didn’t get more entrenched before they pulled this stunt. So disappointing.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago

We are excited to share that Skiff is joining Notion.

Our Incredible Journey.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Oh come on, I was just about to move my calendar there from outlook

Anyone know of another privacy friendly calendar that has a nice and lightweight desktop app?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Haven't used it yet, but Proton has a beta desktop app that might be what you're looking for.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Just checked their gh, it's an electron app :(

[–] fuzzzerd 6 points 9 months ago

While it is an electron app, it's a pretty decent one. Because it's not full of tracking and other crap it's pretty responsive.

Their web and mobile apps are pretty good. Its definitely not as polished as gsuite or office, but it's still good and you are the customer not the product.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I don't see any desktop app on their site

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ah my bad, it doesn't have that itself, however: there is Thunderbird 🐦

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

I'm assuming that would requiring using caldav or whatever, thus no more encryption

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

At this point, to remain anonymous online, you may as well not even get online anymore.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I might just be dumb... But does this mean that in 6 months I just don't have an email there anymore? I didn't see any kind of messaging about transitioning services, just like, 'grab what you can and GTFO.'

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

But does this mean that in 6 months I just don’t have an email there anymore?

Yes, sounds like it. I can imagine that they have decided for this path, instead of a server migration Skiff->Notion, to make sure that previous non paying Skiff users do pay at Notion if they choose for Notion.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (2 children)

If they're joining Notion, does that mean Notion is looking to add encrypted services?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

Lmao no. At best, Notion bought them out to make their own email hosting solution. Worst case, notion bought them out to run the company into the ground to fuck their competition.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago

MAKE PRODUCT AT LOSS

GET CAPITOL TO MAKE PRODUCT LOOK BIGGER

SELL PRODUCT FOR MORE THAN SPENT

FIRE EVERYONE TO "MAKE SUSTAINABLE" (LIE)

LEAVE WITH GOLDEN PARACHUTE

REPEAT TILL YOU CAN BUY ENOUGH PROPERTIES TO RAISE SHITHEAD KID WHO WILL RUIN YOUR FORTUNE

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (4 children)

I was using their quick aliases all the time to get free Adobe trials. Is there any alternative? Gmail's "+" aliases are detected as aliases, Skiff was unpopular enough that they hadn't blacklisted them.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

Buy your own domain and set it up to forward all email to a single address. Then [email protected] is like an alias.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

Fastmail supports aliases as well. I'm not sure how they are from a privacy side overall tho

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (9 children)

Proton supports quick aliases as well.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

addy.io is another alternative

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago

Lessons to learn:

STOP SHILLING EVERY NEW PRIVACY SERVICE PROVIDER

STOP FALLING FOR PRIVACY/SECURITY SNAKE OIL MARKETING

STOP HYPING STUFF TO CREATE ARTIFICIAL ACTIVITY IN PRIVACY COMMUNITY

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago

The enshitfication is real

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Always felt shifty with their marketing attempts "hey, this looks really cool. It has this extensive list of features. I've not tried it, what do you think?".

Feels I was right to be skeptical. Email is sensitive information and not something you can quickly jump to new shiny thing in town. Proton mail is king for me, but at least Tuta been around a while.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

I always thought skiff was sus. I think there was a youtube sponsor video with them or something. Immediately smelled fishy.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

I like to make a conscious effort to move from GMail and Outlook (even though i have a rare @live account with just my first name as the handle) but I also don't want to move away from ThunderBird and FairMail. Skiffs client sucked and Tutanota client sucks less, but it came no where near to thunderbird. I get why they do it, but even then, full PGP auto email was only supported between two tutanota users