Hierarchy of needs. For email I need:
1. To have control over my account, so I can use my custom domain and move to another provider without the years it takes for my family etc. to update everywhere they have my old address stored. So protonmail, posteo, etc., are out.
2. Able to use open tools to access my account. No IMAPS or SMTPS? Out.
3. To be safe against hackers etc. So Joe's Email Service, run out of his basement, that promises not to give the data to his government in Slovakia is out.
4. Privacy against governments is definitely a nice to have feature, _but_ anyone sending me email is probably using Gmail anyway, so it's not like the US government couldn't get it at the other end anyway. If we ignore for the fact that they share so much data, Australia is arguably preferable to the US having data, since I go to the US frequently and have business there and so if something happens like with the curl author where they decide they don't like someone I've done business with, the US is more of a problem.
Fastmail has obvious failings on point 4, but providers need to cover points 1, 2, and 3 before I'm comparing them on point 4.