I got rid of my Hey email address last night. I really liked the āmental modelā of how the app organised email, but there was never enough there to push me to fully switch over from Proton Mail. I couldnāt justify paying for 2 email services over the long term, so one had to go eventually. The furore and fallout of the last couple of days helped make the choice easier and sooner.
Iām not going to touch on the āno political discussionā topic, or the apparent executive power-grabs and other Bad Things which have come out recently. I have strong opinions on all that (the bits Iāve seen and read, at least), very little of it positive or flattering to Basecamp management, but itās not what Iām writing about right now. Maybe later.
One of the less obvious details lurking in this seedy story is that Basecamp as a company seemingly canāt be trusted with customer data. Thatās a dealbreaker for me. A list of āfunnyā customer names might seem innocuous at first glance, but it shows a petty disregard for your customers privacy, or who can access their information (never mind the basic disrespect of being made fun of). Every current and former Basecamp customer who has heard of the kerfuffle over the last few days will have probably asked themselves āwas I on the list?ā
If this list had been a short-lived ājokeā by a bored employee abusing their access and privileges that would be bad enough, assuming management caught it in time and acted decisively in the customer interests. But the list lasted and grew for years. It was an institutional thing with many contributors over time. That in turn raises further concerns about oversight and tacit approval of a company culture which thinks itās fine to abuse customer data and trust like this.
Apparently management didnāt know until someone raised concerns recently. That doesnāt pass the smell test for me. Something as apparently embedded into a workplace culture as this list isnāt magically invisible to The Boss, especially if itās well known among the staff. They know whatās happening; they just know itās better not to say anything so they can have āplausible deniabilityā when it inevitably and eventually goes too far. Iāve seen this sort of managerial behaviour too many times to believe any company – even one as supposedly enlightened as Basecamp – is immune.
But letās suppose for a moment they were (as they say) completely ignorant – for years – of the listā¦ what other abuses are they still unaware of? Are there other skeletons hidden in the closet? And how is that in any way supposed to inspire confidence in me, their customer, that they know what theyāre doing to protect my data? Especially data as sensitive and far reaching as email?
No thank you. No amount of convenient email organisation is worth that. So: subscription cancelled, data exported, deleted1, and the app has been removed from my devices.
- Has it been though? I guess thatās something Iāll need to take on trustā¦ ā©