If you really want to “degoogle” you should probably go for self-hosting or getting a managed OSS product (e.g. managed Mailcow/Sogo Hosting). Otherwise you’re just switching from one crazy billionaire to another.
We can merely choose between which is the seemingly better known evil.
Self hosting is a way to go. It would be nice if one of those "no code" shops could make it a bit easier or something.
https://proton.me/blog/proton-non-profit-foundation
I do agree that self-hosting is best, but particularly for email, that's not trivial.
If so, have a no code site set up a mail host. It might still not be trivial but it might be much easier?
If this no-code stuff isn't a bunch of malarkey, it might be lowering the barrier to self-hosting that we've all been waiting for.
And self-hosting of email isn't quite "doing everything", it's doing one or two things.
It would be, to use your analogy, like growing your own tomatoes because Walmart's suck (and they do). Homegrown tomatoes don't have that "red leather" skin, a mysterious past, and may be quite inexpensive.
You can still get your Chinese made shirts, shoes, pants, and other inexpensive Chinese made goods at Walmart. But skip the Tomatoes.
Like lavabit or anon-penet.fi, cases where things go tits up for non-provider related reasons.
I actually agree, and personally I don't love how they advertise such foolproof security. It's dangerous especially when their non technical users don't understand the consequences. I've had multiple friends using Proton who think it's 100% private even when emailing a gmail user.
I recalled this when I read some crypto security efforts were focused on removing any javascript dependencies. I was like... hmmmm.....