Is Proton actually a non-profit?
Is Proton actually a non-profit? Ive searched it up and Proton itself states that they are a non profit, but since its always good to get another opinion ive asked ChatGPT as well and it stated that proton is NOT a non-profit "Proton is not a nonprofit organization in the legal sense, but it does have a public benefit mission and operates with principles similar to a nonprofit."
I know that Ais can hallucinate therefore ive looked up the definition of a non-profit on wikipedia to try figure out myself.
Wikipedia states "a nonprofit,\a]) is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, as opposed to an entity that operates as a business aiming to generate a profit) for its owners. "
I am pretty Sure Proton does operate as a business for a collective, public or social benefit and is non-governmental (private) legal entity but im also sure that proton makes a lot of money and does generate a profit for its owners and did have some funding from the Swiss authorities tho im not 100% sure about the last part so ignore it if i was mistaken.
Obviously there are a ton of other factors as well such as Management, Functions, Fundraising, Formation and structure and Tax exemption etc... but lets keep it a bit simple for now.
Comparing Proton to Mozilla for example also reveals some differences. The "main" product from Mozilla which is Firefox is completely free and they only charge money for extra features that arent a part of the browser directly, Proton however has a paid plan for every of their products.
I am not making any assumptions here and was just curious whether Proton is actually a non-proft or for-profit, therefore I'd appreciate it if someone could clarify this for me.
Thanks