0: Proton Tech finalizes Standard Notes acquisition before I post to Listed

Listed is a blogging platform that the cross-platform and end-to-end encrypted Standard Notes service runs.

Not sure how the claiming of username works or what the UX is like (yet) on Listed, but this is pretty killer. Although I really enjoy Write Freely, currently the single aspect of Write Freely that holds me back from recommending it to everyone is that it cannot handle images.

Look, I understand that Write Freely isn't a photo gallery like Flickr or a glossy web tool like WordPress.com, but I simply can't recommend Write Freely to everyone when there are situations I have to embed images in my writing posts. The flagship and somewhat proprietary instance Write.as has a gallery service called Snap.as. However, its corresponding open-source counterpart Snap Freely has only shown an empty repo on GitHub since 2019. So, the development for self-hosting Snap Freely is not really going anywhere fast enough for the “everyday normal person who needs to get stuff done”.

Also, the workaround isn't to save your images via Imgur — Imgur probably won't do this (unless you thousands of images and get lots of traffic through your pages), but it reserves the right to disable any image you upload onto it if you use it as your personal CDN, as this is against its own terms of service. It is not very difficult in 2024 for web hosts to figure out if you are attempting to live a “rent free” CDN life through their services. Also, this is unlikely, but if Imgur were to shut down for whatever reason, then your images would also disappear. So, you still don't “own” reliable access to your own images. You will need to self-host your own images if you want to reliably upload your images online. Now I sort of understand why Snowden chose Substack, even if it's a closed source software platform.

Honestly, I was looking at Notesnook for cross-platform E2EE cloud notes, since I liked the interview that was done with one of its developers with Techlore and MKBHD has silently featured on his smartphone screen in videos during 2023-2024.

On April 10, 2024, Proton Tech acquired Standard Notes:

However, both parties have not yet revealed on how paying customers can redeem service at the other's “storefront” — and I'm primarily focused on the direction from Proton Tech to Standard Notes. I remembered that the acquisition of SimpleLogin was much easier. The one thing that really bothers me about the free plan in Standard Notes is that the dark UI themes are locked behind the premium paywall, which I think is not setting a good precedent for premium service tiers for SaaS-like FOSS. I suppose there isn't a good way around this, as Bitwarden locks the ability to use WebAuthn for MFA or passkeys to log in for its premium users.

I suppose I could link to a public Ente gallery, Proton Drive folder, or self-hosted public Nextcloud folder; but this method would not scale for large site traffic. It seems to me that Listed can handle some images (though on the other hand, this is not a photo essay platform), so this would be ideal for my blog writing needs.

However, this Write Freely instance through Infosec Exchange will do for now.