Calling it an "anti- Proton campaign" or "benign" is just rhetorical hand waving. Those words let you dismiss criticism without engaging with the substance. Proton did deliberately email people who opted out. That is a GDPR violation, full stop. They are a large, well resourced company; "oops" is not an excuse. Criticism over that is not hysteria or bandwagoning, and blaming people for speaking up instead of the company for breaking the rules is weak.

The author says himself he opted into every Proton newsletter but the Lumo one. Proton (possibly accidentally) sends a single E-Mail about Lumo in one of the other newsletters he has subscribed to. And it makes it onto HN with 200 comments? Come on.