That's exactly the reason why so many people prefer giving up their data, their privacy, their freedom.

Personally I'm happy to pay proton a few bucks a month to not have to give up those things.

I'm not criticizing those that do, just that given my financial situation the trade off is simply not worth it.

Hushmail was great for me, until I couldn't reclaim my inbox after the subscription expired (but there's no free option).

Other services deprecate or get weird. Hopefully Proton keeps going in the good direction.

Yea I’m in a position where I can’t splurge on things at the moment and basically I would be simply paying for email filters since Proton’s free tier only lets you create one.