Ask HN: Is there room for privacy-oriented tools (e-mail, productivity, etc..)?

Privacy is as much a feature as it is a business model (or reaction against ad-based business models). The biggest question to consider is what will you replace that business model with? And will people pay to use software they're used to getting for free?

I'm not super confident the answer to #2 is yes. But that's the kind of market research you should do before jumping in.

The other alternative is to follow in the path of Signal, make a free, open-source alternative. Survive on grants and donations if you're lucky.

Yes especially well designed ones as far as UX goes. That means easy to use by your friends mom and not sluggish based on network performance or application performance. Definitely needed but it requires a bit of an investment on development and implementation.

What's up with the obsession with privacy on HN?

I'd rather see people work on ways to facilitate the transition to the inevitable post-privacy world than see people waste time making crappy "privacy-oriented" clones of existing tools.