The point is that Google is harming paying customers, and as a paying customer Proton respects me more and it is based in Europe, which is a big plus for me.
> Looks like Google wants to force people to use the WebUI instead of email clients (no google ads on IMAP/POP).
I think that’s a valid criticism, but Protonmail also doesn’t allow people to use a standard email client. I agree with the parent commenter that it’s strange that you’re suggesting it as an alternative, especially when there’s services like Fastmail and Purelymail that both have accessible human support and let you use a standard email client.
Proton has an official bridge software which sets up a local imap/smtp server. I then can use a 3rd party email client. The reason they don't support it directly from their servers is it allows them to not have to decrypt emails in their servers. Only the client can decrypt emails as everything in proton is encrypted so that proton cannot see your emails
